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UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 


GIFT  OF 


WILLIAM  OILMAN  THOMPSON. 


5 

'-.•'•  •       1 


In 

CASTILIAN    DAYS. 

BY   JOHN    HAY. 

V. 

JAMES  R.  OSGOOD  &  Co.,  PUBLISHERS. 


PIKE  COUNTY  BALLADS 


AND 


OTHER    PIECES 


BY  JOHN   HAY. 


JAMES   R.  OSGOOD   AND   COMPANY, 

LATE  TICKNOR  &  FIELDS,  AND  FIELDS,  OSGOOD,  &  Co. 
1871. 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  iu  the  year  1871, 

BY    JOHN     HAY, 
in  the  Office  of  the  Librarian  of  Congress,  at  Washington. 


UNIVERSITY  PRESS:  WELCH,  BIGELOW,  &  Co. 
CAMBRIDGE. 


NOTE. 

SOME  of  the  verses  contained  in  this  volume  are  now 
published  for  the  first  time.  Those  entitled  "  Banty  Tim," 
"The  Mystery  of  Gilgal,"  and  "A  Woman's  Love,"  are  re 
printed  from  Harper's  Weekly;  "Northward"  and  "The 
Monks  of  Basle,"  from  Harper's  Monthly. 


PAGE 


CONTENTS. 

THE   PIKE   COUNTY  BALLADS. 

LITTLE  BREECHES 

JIM  BLUDSO 

,    21 
BANTY  TIM 

THE  MYSTERY  OF  GILGAL 

WANDERLIEDER. 

SUNRISE  IN  THE  PLACE  DE  LA  CONCORDE        .       .        •        •  31 

THE  SPHINX  OF  THE  TUII.ERIES 39 

THE  SURRENDER  OF  SPAIN 42 

THE  PRAYER  OF  THE  ROMANS * 

THE  CURSE  OF  HUNGARY   .        . 49 

THE  MONKS  OF  BASLE    . 

THE  ENCHANTED  SHIRT 59 

A  WOMAN'S  LOVE 

/ro 

ON  PITZ  LANGUARD 


Vlll  CONTENTS. 

NEW   AND   OLD. 

IN  CHURCH *, 

REMORSE •       •       •       •        •      75 

ESSE  QUAM   VlDERI j» 

WHEN  THE  BOYS  COME  HOME 78 

LESE-AMOUR gz 

NORTHWARD 3, 

IN  THE  FIRELIGHT 33 

AFTER  HEINE o2 

IN  A  GRAVEYARD. o^ 

THE  PRAIRIE ~- 

CENTENNIAL 

A  WINTER  NIGHT I0r 

STUDENT-SONG IO5 

I.  CEDAR  MOUNTAIN IO3 

II.  PORT  HUDSON IIO 

AT  SUNSET ,  in 

HOW   IT  HAPPENED            . IT^ 

GOD'S  VENGEANCE ITg 

Too  LATE I20 

LOVE'S  DOUBT I23 

LAGRIMAS 125 

COUNTESS  JUTTA I27 


CONTENTS. 

ON  THE  BLUFF 

GOOD  AND  BAD  LUCK J3: 

UNA 

"THROUGH  THE  LONG  DAYS  AND   YEARS "       .          .          .          .135 

A  PHYLACTERY X37 

BLONDINE *39 

DISTICHES 

REGARDANT I43 

GUY  OF  THE  TEMPLE I46 


THE  PIKE  COUNTY  BALLADS. 


LITTLE    BREECHES. 

T    DON'T  go  much  on  religion, 

I  never  ain't  had  no  show  ; 
But  I  've  got  a  middlin'  tight  grip,  sir, 

On  the  handful  o'  things  I  know. 
I  don't  pan  out  on  the  prophets 

And  free-will,  and  that  sort  of  thing,  - 
But  I  b'lieve  in  God  and  the  angels, 
Ever  sence  one  night  last  spring. 

I  come  into  town  with  some  turnips, 
And  my  little  Gabe  come  along, — 

No  four-year-old  in  the  county 

Could  beat  him  for  pretty  and  strong, 


14  LITTLE    BREECHES. 

Peart  and  chipper  and  sassy, 

Always  ready  to  swear  and  fight,  — • 

And  I  'd  larnt  him  to  chaw  terbacker 
Jest  to  keep  his  milk-teeth  white. 

The  snow  come  down  like  a  blanket 

As  I  passed  by  Taggart's  store ; 
I  went  in  for  a  jug  of  molasses 

And  left  the  team  at  the  door. 
They  scared  at  something  and  started, 

I  heard  one  little  squall, 
And  hell-to-split  over  the  prairie 

Went  team,  Little  Breeches  and  all. 

Hell-to-split  over  the  prairie  ! 

I  was  almost  froze  with  skeer ; 
But  we  rousted  up  some  torches, 

And  sarched  for  'em  far  and  near. 


LITTLE   BREECHES.  15 

At  last  we  struck  bosses  and  wagon, 
Snowed  under  a  soft  white  mound, 

Upsot,  dead  beat,  —  but  of  little  Gabe 
No  hide  nor  hair  was  found. 

And  here  all  hope  soured  on  me, 

Of  my  fellow-critter's  aid,  — 
I  jest  flopped  down  on  my  marrow-bones, 

Crotch-deep  in  the  snow,  and  prayed. 

By  this,  the  torches  was  played  out, 

And  me  and  Isrul  Parr 
Went  off  for  some  wood  to  a  sheepfold 

That  he  said  was  somewhar  than 

We  found  it  at  last,  and  a  little  shed 
Where  they  shut  up  the  lambs  at  night 


l6  .-LITTLE    BREECHES. 

We  looked  in  and  seen  them  huddled  thar, 
So  warm  and  sleepy  and  white  ; 

And  THAR  sot  Little  Breeches  and  chirped, 
As  peart  as  ever  you  see, 

"  I  want  a  chaw  of  terbacker, 
And  that 's  what 's  the  matter  of  me." 

How  did  he  git  thar  ?     Angels. 

He  could  never  have  walked  in  that  storm. 
They  jest  scooped  down  and  toted  him 

To  whar  it  was  safe  and  warm. 
And  I  think  that  saving  a  little  child, 

And  bringing  him  to  his  own, 
Is  a  derned  sight  better  business 

Than  loafing  around  The  Throne. 


JIM   BLUDSO, 

OF    THE    PRAIRIE    BELLE. 

^T  TALL,  no!  I  can't  tell  whar  he  lives, 

Becase  he  don't  live,  you  see  ; 
Leastways,  he  's  got  out  of  the  habit 

Of  livin'  like  you  and  me. 
Whar  have  you  been  for  the  last  three  year 

That  you  have  n't  heard  folks  tell 
How  Jimmy  Bludso  passed  in  his   checks 

The  night  of  the  Prairie  Belle  ? 

He  wore  n't  no  saint,  —  them  engineers 
Is  all  pretty  much  alike, — 


18  JIM    BLUDSO. 

One  wife  in  Natchez-under-the-Hill 
And  another  one  here,  in  Pike ; 

A  keerless  man  in  his  talk  was  Jim, 
And  an  awkward  hand  in  a  row, 

But  he  never  .flunked,  and  he  never  lied,  - 
I  reckon  he  never  knowed  how. 

And  this  was  all  the  religion  he  had,  — 

To  treat  his  engine  well  ; 
Never  be  passed  on  the  river 

To  mind  the  pilot's  bell  ; 
And  if  ever  the  Prairie  Belle  took  fire,  — 

A  thousand  times  he  swore, 
He  'd  hold  her  nozzle  agin  the  bank 

Till  the  last  soul  got  ashore. 

All  boats  has  their  day  on  the  Mississip, 
And  her  day  come  at  last, — 


JIM   BLUDSO.  19 

The  Movastar  was  a  better  boat, 

But  the  Belle  she  would  rit  be  passed. 

And  so  she  come  tearin'  along  that  night  — 
The  oldest  craft  on  the  line — 

With  a  nigger  squat  on  her  safety-valve, 
And  her  furnace  crammed,  rosin  and  pine. 


,.- 

clared 


The  fire  bust  out  as  she  clared  the  bar, 

And  burnt  a  hole  in  the  night, 
And  quick  as  a  flash  she  turned,  and  made 

For  that  wilier-bank  on  the  right. 
-  .  j . 
There  was  runnin    and  cursin',  but  Jim  yelled  out, 

Over  all  the  infernal  roar, 
"I'll  hold  her  nozzle  agin  the  bank 
Till  the  last  galoot  's  ashore." 

Through  the  hot,  black  breath  of  the  burnin'  boat 
Jim  Bludso's  voice  was  heard, 


2O  JIM   BLUDSO. 

And  they  all  had  trust  in  his  cussedness, 
», 

And  knowed  he  would  keep  his  word. 
And,  sure  's  you  're  born,  they  all  got  off 

Afore  the  smokestacks  fell, — 
And  Bludso's  ghost  went  up  alone 

4 

In  the  smoke  of  the  Prairie  Belle. 
'  V 

^(^M-AA.  f\ 

He  were  n't  no  saint,  —  but  at  jedgment 

I  'd  run  my  chance  with  Jim, 
'Longside  of  some  pious  gentlemen 

That  would  n't  shook  hands  with  him. 
He  seen  his  duty,  a  dead-sure  thing, 

And  went  for  it  thar  and  then  ; 
And  Christ  ain't  >a-geing- to  be  too  hard 

On  a  man  that  died  for  men. 


BANTY    TIM. 

'REMARKS  OF  SERGEANT  TILMON  JOY  TO  THE  WHITE  MAN'S 
COMMITTEE  OF  SPUNKY  POINT,  ILLINOIS.) 

T    RECKON  I  git  your  drift,  gents,— 

You  'low  the  boy  sha'  n't  stay  ; 
This  is  a  white  man's  country  ; 

You  're  Dimocrats,  you  say  ; 
And  whereas,  and  seein',  and  wherefore, 

The  times  bein'  all  out  o'  j'int, 
The  nigger  has  got  to  mosey 

From  the  limits  o'  Spunky  P'int ! 


Le's  reason  the  thing  a  minute  : 
I  'm  an  old-fashioned  Dimocrat  too, 


22  BANTY   TIM. 

Though  I  laid  my  politics  out  o'  the  way 
For  to  keep  till  the  war  was  through. 

But  I  come  back  here,  allowin' 
To  vote  as  I  used  to  do, 

Though  it  gravels  me  like  the  devil  to  train 
Along  o'  sich  fools  as  you. 

Now  dog  my  cats  ef  I  kin  see, 

In  all  the  light  of  the  day, 
What  you  've  got  to  do  with  the  question 

Ef  Tim  shill  go  or  stay. 
And  furder  than  that  I  give  notice, 

Ef  one  of  you  tetches  the  boy, 
He  kin  check  his  trunks  to  a  warmer  clime 

Than  he  '11  find  in  Illanoy. 

Why,  blame  your  hearts,  jest  hear  me  ! 
You  know  that  ungodly  day 


BANTY   TIM.  23 

When  our  left  struck  Vicksburg  Heights,  how  ripped 

And  torn  and  tattered  we  lay. 
When  the  rest  retreated  I  stayed  behind, 

Fur  reasons  sufficient  to  me,  — 
With  a  rib  caved  in,  and  a  leg  on  a  strike, 

I  sprawled  on  that  damned  glacee. 

Lord!  how  the  hot  sun  went  for  us, 

And  br'iled  and  blistered  and  burned  ! 
How  the  Rebel  bullets  whizzed  round  us 

When  a  cuss  in  his  death-grip  turned  ! 
Till  along  toward  dusk  I  seen  a  thing 

I  could  n't  believe  for  a  spell : 
That  nigger  —  that  Tim  —  was  a  crawlin'  to  me 

Through  that  fire-proof,  gilt-edged  hell ! 

The  Rebels  seen  him  as  quick  as  me, 
And  the  bullets  buzzed  like  bees  ; 


24  BANTY   TIM. 

But  he  jumped  for  me,  and  shouldered  me, 

Though  a  shot  brought  him  once  to  his  knees  ; 

But  he  staggered  up,  and  packed  me  off, 
With  a  dozen  stumbles  and  falls, 

Till  safe  in  our  lines  he  drapped  us  both, 
His  black  hide  riddled  with  balls. 

So,  my  gentle  gazelles,  thar  's  my  answer, 

And  here  stays  Banty  Tim  : 
He  trumped  Death's  ace  for  me  that  day, 

And  I  'm  not  goin'  back  on  him  ! 
You  may  rezoloot  till  the  cows  come  home, 

But  ef  one  of  you  tetches  the  boy, 
He  '11  wrastle  his  hash  to-night  in  hell, 

Or  my  name  's  not  Tilmon  Joy ! 


THE   MYSTERY   OF   GILGAL. 

E  darkest,  strangest  mystery 
I  ever  read,  or  heern,  or  see, 
Is  'long  of  a  drink  at  Taggart's  Hall, — 
Tom  Taggart's  of  Gilgal. 

I  Ve  heern  the  tale  a  thousand  ways, 
But  never  could  git  through  the  maze 
That  hangs  around  that  queer  day's  doin's ; 
But  I  '11  tell  the  yarn  to  youans. 

Tom  Taggart  stood  behind  his  bar, 
The  time  was  fall,  the  skies  was  far, 
The  neighbors  round  the  counter  drawed, 
And  ca'mly  drinked  and  jawed. 


26  THE    MYSTERY    OF    GILGAL. 

At  last  come  Colonel  Blood  of  Pike, 
And  old  Jedge  Phinn,  permiscus-like, 
And  each,  as  he  meandered  in, 
Remarked,  "A  whisky-skin," 

Tom  mixed  the  beverage  full  and  far, 
And  slammed  it,  smoking,  on  the  bar. 
Some  says  three  fingers,  some  says  two, — 
I  '11  leave  the  choice  to  you. 

Phinn  to  the  drink  put  forth  his  hand  ; 
Blood  drawed  his  knife,  with  accent  bland, 
"I  ax  yer  parding,  Mister  Phinn  — 
Jest  drap  that  whisky-skin." 

No  man  high-toneder  could  be  found 
Than  old  Jedge  Phinn  the  country  round. 


THE    MYSTERY    OF    G1LGAL.  2/ 

Says  he,  "  Young  man,  the  tribe  of  Phinns 
Knows  their  own  whisky-skins  !  " 

He  went  for  his  'leven-inch  bowie-knife :  — 
"  I  tries  to  foller  a  Christian  life  ; 
But  I  '11  drap  a  slice  of  liver  or  two, 
My  bloomin'  shrub,  with  you." 

They  carved  in  a  way  that  all  admired, 
Tell  Blood  drawed  iron  at  last,  and  fired. 
It  took  Seth  Bludso  'twixt  the  "eyes, 
Which  caused  him  great  surprise. 

Then  coats  went  off,  and  all  went  in ; 
Shots  and  bad  language  swelled  the  din  ; 
The  short,  sharp  bark  of  Derringers, 
Like  bull-pups,  cheered  the  furse. 


28  THE    MYSTERY    OF    GILGAL. 

They  piled  the  stiffs  outside  the  door; 
They  made,  I  reckon,  a  cord  or  more. 
Girls  went  that  winter,  as  a  rule, 
Alone  to  spellin'-school. 

I  Ve  sarched  in  vain,  from  Dan  to  Beer- 
Sheba,  to  make  this  mystery  clear ; 
But  I  end  with  hit  as  I  did  begin,  — 

WHO    GOT   THE   WHISKY-SKIN  ?  " 


WANDERLIEDER. 


SUNRISE    IN    THE    PLACE    DE    LA 
CONCORDE. 

(PARIS,  AUGUST,  1865.) 

T    STAND  at  the  break  of  day 

In  the  Champs  Elyse"es. 
The  tremulous  shafts  of  dawning 
As  they  shoot  o'er  the  Tuileries  early, 
Strike  Luxor's  cold  gray  spire, 
And  wild  in  the  light  of  the  morning 
With  their  marble  manes  on  fire, 
Ramp  the  white  Horses  of  Marly. 

But  the  Place  of  Concord  lies 
Dead  hushed  'neath  the  ashy  skies. 


32         SUNRISE    IN    Till-.    I'l.ACK    l>l>.    I. A    CONCORDE. 

And  the  Cities  sit  in  council 
With  sleep  in  their  wide-  stone  eyes. 
I  see  the  mystic  plain 
Where  the  army  of  spectres  slain 
In    the    Kmpcror's  life-Ion*;  war 
March   on    with    unsoundini;   tread 
To  trumpets   whose  voice   is  dead. 
Their  BpCCtral   chiel'  still    leads   tlieni,- 
The  ghostly  flash  of  his  sword 
Like  a  comet    through    mist    shines    far, 
And   the   noiseless   host   is  poured, 
l-'or   the;  ^iMidarme    ne\i-i    heeds   them, 
Up  the   lon^  dim  road   where-  thundered 
The  army  <»f  Italy  onward 
Through   the   «;i'eat    pale   Arch   of  the   Star  ! 

The  spectre  army  fades 
Far  up  the  idimnu-rin^  hill, 


SUNRISE    IN    Till:    PLACE    DE    LA    CONCORDE.        33 

But,  vaguely  lingering  still, 

A  group  of  shuddering  shades 

Infects  the  pallid  air, 

Growing  dimmer  as  day  invades 

The  hush  of  the  dusky  square. 

There  is  one  that  seems  a  King, 

As  if  the  ghost  of  a  Crown 

Still  shadowed  his  jail-bleached  hair  ; 

I  can  hear  the  guillotine  ring, 

As  its  regicide  note  rang  there, 

When  he  laid  his  tired  life  down 

And  grew  brave  in  his  last  despair. 

And  a  woman  frail  and  fair 

Who  weeps  at  leaving  a  world 

Of  love  and  revel  and  sin 

In  the  vast  Unknown  to  be  hurled 

(For  life  was  wicked  and  sweet 

2*  c 


34       SUNRISE   IN   THE   PLACE   DE   LA    CONCORDE. 

With  kings  at  her  small  white  feet ! ) 
And  one,  every  inch  a  Queen, 
In  life  and  in  death  a  Queen, 
Whose  blood  baptized  the  place, 
In  the  days  of  madness  and  fear, — 
Her  shade  has  never  a  peer 
In  majesty  and  grace. 

Murdered  and  murderers  swarm  ; 

Slayers  that  slew  and  were  slain, 

Till  the  drenched  place  smoked  with  the  rain 

That  poured  in  a  torrent  warm, — 

Till  red  as  the  Riders  of  Edom 

Were  splashed  the  white  garments  of  Freedom 

With  the  wash  of  the  horrible  storm  ! 

And  Liberty's  hands  were  not  clean 
In  the  day  of  her  pride  unchained, 


SUNRISE  IN  THE  PLACE  DE  LA  CONCORDE.    35 

Her  royal  hands  were  stained 

With  the  life  of  a  King  and  Queen  ; 

And  darker  than  that  with  the  blood 

Of  the  nameless  brave  and  good 

Whose  blood  in  witness  clings 

More  damning  than  Queens'  and  Kings'. 

Has  she  not  paid  it  dearly  ? 

Chained,  watching  her  chosen  nation 

Grindi-ng  late  and  early 

In  the  mills  of  usurpation  ? 

Have  not  her  holy  tears 

Flowing  through  shameful  years, 

Washed  the  stains  from  her  tortured  hands  ? 

We  thought  so  when  God's  fresh  breeze, 

Blowing  over  the  sleeping  lands, 

In  'Forty-Eight  waked  the  world, 


36        SUNRISE    IN   THE   PLACE   DE   LA   CONCORDE. 

And  the  best  of  the  kings  was  hurled 
From  that  palace  behind  the  trees. 

As  Freedom  with  eyes  aglow 

Smiled  glad  through  her  childbirth  pain, 

How  was  the  mother  to  know 

That  her  woe  and  travail  were  vain  ? 

A  smirking  servant  smiled 

When  she  gave  him  her  child  to  keep  ; 

Did  she  know  he  would  strangle  the  child 

As  it  lay  in  his  arms  asleep  ? 

Liberty's  cruellest  shame  ! 
She  is  stunned  and  speechless  yet. 
In  her  grief  and  bloody  sweat 
Shall  we  make  her  trust  her  blame  ? 
The  treasure  of  'Forty-Eight 


SUNRISE  IN  THE  PLACE  DE  LA  CONCORDE.    37 

A  lurking  jail-bird  stole, 
She  can  but  watch  and  wait 
As  the  swift  sure  seasons  roll. 

And  when  in  God's  good  hour 

Comes  the  time  of  the  brave  and  true, 

Freedom  again  shall  rise 

With  a  blaze  in  her  awful  eyes 

That  shall  wither  this  robber-power 

As  the  sun  now  dries  the  dew. 

This  Place  shall  roar  with  the  voice 

Of  the  glad  triumphant  people, 

And  the  heavens  be  gay  with  the  chimes 

Ringing  with  jubilant  noise 

From  every  clamorous  steeple 

The  coming  of  better  times. 

And  the  dawn  of  Freedom  waking 


38        SUNRISE    IN    THE    PLACE   DE   LA   CONCORDE. 

Shall  fling  its  splendors  far 
Like  the  day  which  now  is  breaking 
On  the  great  pale  Arch  of  the  Star, 
And  back  o'er  the  town  shall  fly, 
While  the  joy-bells  wild  are  ringing, 
To  crown  the  Glory  springing 
From  the  Column  of  July ! 


THE   SPHINX   OF  THE  TUILERIES. 


of  the  Latin  Quarter 
I  came  to  the  lofty  door 
Where  the  two  marble  Sphinxes  guard 

The  Pavilion  de  Flore. 
Two  Cockneys  stood  by  the  gate,  and  one 

Observed,  as  they  turned  to  go, 
"  No  wonder  He  likes  that  sort  of  thing,  — 
He  's  a  Sphinx  himself,  you  know." 

I  thought  as  I  walked  where  the  garden  glowed 

In  the  sunset's  level  fire, 
Of  the  Charlatan  whom  the  Frenchmen  loathe 

And  the  Cockneys  all  admire. 


4O  THE   SPHINX   OF   THE   TUILERIES. 

They  call  him  a  Sphinx,  —  it  pleases  him,  — 

And  if  we  narrowly  read, 
We  will  find  some  truth  in  the  flunkey's  praise, 

The  man  is  a  Sphinx  indeed. 

For  the  Sphinx  with  breast  of  woman 

And  face  so  debonair 
Had  the  sleek  false  paws  of  a  lion, 

That  could  furtively  seize  and  tear. 
So  far  to  the  shoulders,  —  but  if  you  took 

The  Beast  in  reverse  you  would  find 
The  ignoble  form  of  a  craven  cur 

Was  all  that  lay  behind. 

She  lived  by  giving  to  simple  folk 

A  silly  riddle  to  read, 
And  when  they  failed  she  drank  their  blood 

In  cruel  and  ravenous  greed. 


THE    SPHINX    OF    THE    TUILERIES.  4! 

it  at  last  came  one  who  knew  her  word, 
And  she  perished  in  pain  and  shame,  — 
lis  bastard  Sphinx  leads  the  same  base,  life 
And  his  end  will  be  the  same. 

)r  an  CEdipus-People  is  coming  fast 

With  swelled  feet  limping  on, 

they  shout  his  true  name  once  aloud 

His  false  foul  power  is  gone. 

[raid  to  fight  and  afraid  to  fly, 

He  cowers  in  an  abject  shiver ; 

le  people  will  come  to  their  own  at  last,  — 

God  is  not  mocked  forever. 


THE    SURRENDER    OF    SPAIN. 

* 

i. 

T     AND  of  unconquered  Pelayo  !  land  of  the  Cid 

Campeador  ! 
Sea-girdled  mother  of  men  !    Spain,  name  of  glory 

and  power ; 
Cradle  of  world-grasping   Emperors,   grave    of  the 

reckless  invader, 
How  art  thou  fallen,  my  Spain  !  how  art  thou  sunk 

at  this  hour  ! 

ii. 

Once  thy  magnanimous  sons  trod,  victors,  the  por 
tals  of  Asia, 

Once  the  Pacific  waves  rushed,  joyful  thy  banners 
to  see ; 


THE    SURRENDER   OF    SPAIN.  43 

For   it   was  Trajan    that  carried   the   battle-flushed 
eagles  to  Dacia, 

Cortes  that  planted  thy  flag  fast  by  the  uttermost 
•   sea. 

in. 

Has  thou  forgotten  those  days  illumined  with  glory 
and  honor, 

When  the  far  isles  of  the  sea  thrilled  to  the  tread 
of  Castile  ? 

When   every   land   under    Heaven    was   flecked    by 
the  shade  of  thy  banner,  — 

When  every  beam  of  the   sun  flashed  on  thy  con 
quering  steel  ? 

IV. 

Then  through  red  fields  of  slaughter,  through  death 

and  defeat  and  disaster, 
Still  flared  thy  banner  aloft,  tattered,  but  free  from 

a  stain,  — 


44  THE    SURRENDER    OF    SPAIN. 

Now  to  the  upstart  Savoyard   thou   bendest  to  beg 

for  a  master  ! 
How   the   red  flush  of  her  shame  mars  the  proud 

beauty  of  Spain  ! 

v. 

Has  the  red  blood  run  cold  that  boiled  by  the 
Xenil  and  Darro  ? 

Are  the  high  deeds  of  the  sires  sung  to  the  chil 
dren  no  more  ? 

On  the  dun  hills  of  the  North  hast  thou  heard  of 
no  plough-boy  Pizarro  ? 

Roams  no  young  swine-herd  Cortes  hid  by  the 
Tagus'  wild  shore  ? 

VI. 

Once   again  does  Hispania  bend  low  to  the  yoke 

of  the  stranger  ! 

Once  again  will  she  rise,  flinging  her  gyves  in  the 
sea! 


THE    SURRENDER   OF   SPAIN. 


45 


Princeling    of    Piedmont  !    unwitting    thou    weddest 

with  doubt  and  with  danger, 
King  over  men  who  have  learned  all  that  it  costs 

to  be  free. 


THE   PRAYER    OF  THE   ROMANS. 

"\  T  OT  done,  but  near  its  ending, 

Is  the  work  that  our  eyes  desired; 
Not  yet  fulfilled,  but  near  the  goal, 

Is  the  hope  that  our  worn  hearts  fired. 
And  on  the  Alban  Mountains, 

Where  the  blushes  of  dawn  increase, 
We  see  the  flash  of  the  beautiful  feet 

Of  Freedom  and  of  Peace  ! 

How  long  were  our  fond  dreams'  baffled  !  • 

Novara's  sad  mischance, 
The  Kaiser's  sword  and  fetter-lock, 

And  the  traitor  stab  of  France  ; 


THE  PRAYER  OF  THE  ROMANS. 

Till  at  last  came  glorious  Venice, 

In  storm  and  tempest  home  ; 
And  now  God  maddens  the  greedy  kings, 

And  gives  to  her  people  Rome. 

Lame  Lion  of  Caprera  ! 

Red-shirts  of  the  lost  campaigns  ! 
Not  idly  shed  was  the  costly  blood 

You  poured  from  generous  veins. 
For  the  shame  of  Aspromonte, 

And  the  stain  of  Mentana's  sod, 
But  forged  the  curse  of  kings  that  sprang 

From  your  breaking  hearts  to  God  ! 

\Ye  lift  our  souls  to  thee,  O  Lord 

Of  Liberty  and  of  Light  ! 
Let  not  earth's  kings  pollute  the  work 

That  was  done  in  their  despite  ; 


48         THE  PRAYER  OF  THE  ROMANS. 

Let  not  thy  light  be  darkened 
In  the  shade  of  a  sordid  crown, 

Nor  the  Piedmont  swine  devour  the  fruit 
Thou  shook'st  with  an  earthquake  down  ! 

Let  the  People  come  to  their  birthright, 

And  crosier  and  crown  pass  away 
Like  phantasms  that  flit  o'er  the  marshes 

At  the  glance  of  the  clean,  white  day. 
And  then  from  the  lava  of  ^Etna 

To  the  ice  of  the  Alps  let  there  be 
One  freedom,  one  faith  without  fetters, 

One  republic  in  Italy  free ! 


THE    CURSE    OF    HUNGARY. 
TV"  ING  Saloman  looked  from  his  donjon  bars, 

iv 

Where   the   Danube    clamors    through    sedge 

and  sand, 

And  he  cursed  with  a  curse  his  revolting  land,  — 
With  a  king's  deep  curse  of  treason  and  wars. 

He  said :  "  May  this  false  land  know  no  truth  ! 

May  the  good  hearts  die  and  the  bad  ones  flour 
ish, 

And  a  greed  of  glory  but  live  to  nourish 
Envy  and  hate  in  its  restless  youth. 

"  In  the  barren  soil  may  the  ploughshare  rust, 
While  the  sword  grows  bright  with  its  fatal  labor, 
3  D 


50  THE    CURSE    OF    HUNGARY. 

And  blackens  between  each  man  and  neighbor 
The  perilous  cloud  of  a  vague  distrust ! 

"Be  the  noble  idle,  the  peasant  in  thrall, 
And  each  to  the  other  as  unknown  things, 
That  with  links  of  hatred  and  pride  the  kings 

May  forge  firm  fetters  through  each  for  all ! 

"  May  a  king  wrong  them  as  they  wronged  their  king  ! 
May  he  wring  their  hearts  as  they  wrung  mine, 
Till  they  pour  their  blood  for  his  revels  like  wine, 

And  to  women  and  monks  their  birthright  fling  ! " 

The  mad  king  died  ;   but  the  rushing  river 

Still  brawls  by  the  spot  where  his  donjon  stands, 
And  its  swift  waves  sigh  to  the  conscious  sands 

That  the  curse  of  King  Saloman  works  forever. 


THE    CURSE   OF    HUNGARY.  51 

For  flowing  by  Pressbourg  they  heard  the  cheers 
Ring  out  from  the  leal  and  cheated  hearts 
That  were  caught  and  chained  by  Theresa's  arts,  — 

A  man's  cool  head  and  a  girl's  hot  tears! 

And  a  star,  scarce  risen,  they  saw  decline, 
Where  Orsova's  hills  looked  coldly  down, 
As  Kossuth  buried  the  Iron  Crown 

And  fled  in  the  dark  to  the  Turkish  line. 

And  latest  they  saw  in  the  summer  glare 
The  Magyar  nobles  in  pomp  arrayed, 
To  shout  as  they  saw,  with  his  unfleshed  blade, 

A  Hapsburg  beating  the  harmless  air. 

But  ever  the  same  sad  play  they  saw, 

The  same  weak  worship  of  sword  and  crown, 


52  THE    CURSE    OF    HUNGARY. 

The  noble  crushing  the  humble  down, 
And  moulding  Wrong  to  a  monstrous  Law. 

The  donjon  stands  by  the  turbid  river, 

But  Time  is  crumbling  its  battered  towers  ; 
And  the  slow  light  withers  a  despot's  powers, 

And  a  mad  king's  curse  is  not  forever ! 


.// 

(Vlif  r>^   ,  ,  X 


THE   MONKS    OF   BASLE. 

T    TORE  this  weed  from  the  rank,  dark  soil 

Where  it  grew  in  the  monkish  time, 
I  trimmed  it  close  and  set  it  again 
In  a  border  of  modern  rhyme. 


I. 

Long  years  ago,  when  the  Devil  was  loose 

And  faith  was  sorely  tried, 
Three  monks  of  Basle  went  out  to  walk 

In  the  quiet  eventide. 

A  breeze  as  pure  as  the  breath  of  Heaven 
Blew  fresh  through  the  cloister-shades, 


54  THE   MONKS    OF    BASLE. 

A  sky  as  glad  as  the  smile  of  Heaven 
Blushed  rose  o'er  the  minster-glades. 

But  scorning  the  lures  of  summer  and  sense, 
The  monks  passed  on  in  their  walk ; 

Their  eyes  were  abased,  their  senses  slept, 
Their  souls  were  in  their  talk. 

In  the  tough  grim  talk  of  the  monkish  days 
They  hammered  and  slashed  about,  — 

Dry  husks  of  logic,  —  old-  scraps  of  creed,  — 
And  the  cold  gray  dreams  of  doubt,  — 

And  whether  Just  or  Justified 

Was  the  Church's  mystic  Head, — 

And  whether  the  Bread  was  changed  to  God, 
Or  God  became  the  Bread. 


THE    MONKS    OF    BASLE.  55 

But  of  human  hearts  outside  their  walls 

They  never  paused  to  dream, 
And  they  never  thought  of  the  love  of  God 

That  smiled  in  the  twilight  gleam. 

II.  ' 

As  these  three  monks  went  bickering  on 

By  the  foot  of  a  spreading  tree, 
Out  from  its  heart  of  verdurous  gloom 

A  song  burst  wild  and  free,  — 

A  wordless  carol  of  life  and  love, 

Of  nature  free  and  wild  ; 
And  the  three  monks  paused  in  the  evening  shade, 

Looked  up  at  each  other  and  smiled. 

And  tender  and  gay  the  bird  sang  on, 
And  cooed  and  whistled  and  trilled, 


^  THE    MONKS    OF    BASLE. 

And  the  wasteful  wealth  of  life  and  love 
From  his  happy  heart  was  spilled. 

The  song  had  power  on  the  grim  old  monks 

In  the  light  of  the  rosy  skies  ; 
And  as  they  listened  the  years  rolled  back, 

And  tears  came  into  their  eyes. 

The  years  rolled  back  and  they  were  young, 
With  the  hearts  and  hopes  of  men, 

They  plucked  the  daisies  and  kissed  the  girls 
Of  dear  dead  summers  again. 

in. 
But  the  eldest  monk  soon  broke  the  spell; 

"'Tis  sin  and  shame,"  quoth  he, 
"  To  be  turned  from  talk  of  holy  things 

By  a  bird's  cry  from  a  tree. 


THE    MONKS    OF    BASLE.  57 

"  Perchance  the  Enemy  of  Souls 

Hath  come  to  tempt  us  so. 
Let  us  try  by  the  power  of  the  Awful  Word 

If  it  be  he,  or  no ! " 

To  Heaven  the  three  monks  raised  their  hands  ; 

"  We  charge  thee,  speak !  "  they  said, 
"  By  His  dread  Name  who  shall  one  day  come 

To  judge  the  quick  and  the  dead,  — 

"  Who  art  thou  ?    Speak  !  "    The  bird  laughed  loud, 

"I  am  the  Devil,"  he  said. 
The  monks  on  their  faces  fell,  the  bird 

Away  through  the  twilight  sped. 

A  horror  fell  on  those  holy  men, 
(The  faithful  legends  say,) 
3* 


58  THE    MONKS    OF    BASLE. 

And  one  by  one  from  the  face  of  earth 
They  pined  and  vanished  away. 

IV. 

So  goes  the  tale  of  the  monkish  books, 
The  moral  who  runs  may  read,  — 

He  has  no  ears  for  Nature's  voice 
Whose  soul  is  the  slave  of  creed. 

Not  all  in  vain  with  beauty  and  love 
Has  God  the  world  adorned ; 

And  he  who  Nature  scorns  and  mocks, 
By  Nature  is  mocked  and  scorned. 


THE    ENCHANTED    SHIRT. 

Fytte  ye  Firste  :  wherein  it  shall  be  shown  how  ye  Truth  is  too  mightie 
a  Drugge  for  stick  as  be  of  feeble  temper. 

r  I  ^HE  King  was  sick.     His  cheek  was  red 

And  his  eye  was  clear  and  bright  ; 
He  ate  and  drank  with  a  kingly  zest, 
And  peacefully  snored  at  night. 

But  he  said  he  was  sick,  and  a  king  should  know, 

And  doctors  came  by  the  score. 
They  did  not  cure  him.     He  cut  off  their  heads 

And  sent  to  the  schools  for  more. 

At  last  two  famous  doctors  came, 
And  one  was  as  poor  as  a  rat,  — 


5o  THE    ENCHANTED    SHIRT. 

He  had  passed  his  life  in  studious  toil, 
And  never  found  time  to  grow  fat. 

The  other  had  never  looked  in  a  book  ; 

His  patients  gave  him  no  trouble, 
If  they  recovered  they  paid  him  well, 

If  they  died  their  heirs  paid  double. 

Together  they  looked  at  the  royal  tongue, 
As  the  King  on  his  couch  reclined  ; 

In  succession  they  thumped  his  august  chest, 
But  no  trace  of  disease  could  find. 

The  old  sage  said,  "  You  're  as  sound  as  a  nut." 
"  Hang  him  up,"  roared  the  King  in  a  gale,  — 

In  a  ten-knot  gale  of  royal  rage  ; 
The  other  leech  grew  a  shade  pale  ; 


THE   ENCHANTED    SHIRT.  6l 

But  he  pensively  rubbed  his  sagacious  noso> 

And  thus  his  prescription  ran, — 
The  King  will  be  well,  if  he  sleeps  one  night 

In  the  Shirt  of  a  Happy  Man. 


Fytte  ye  Seconde  :  telleth  ofye  search  for  ye  Shirte  and  how  it  was  nighe 
founde  but  was  not fe,  for  reasons  qu :  are  sayd  or  sung. 

Wide  o'er  the  realm  the  couriers  rode, 

And  fast  their  horses  ran, 
And  many  they  saw,  and  to  many  they  spoke, 

But  they  found  no  Happy  Man. 

They  found  poor  men  who  would  fain  be  rich, 
And  rich  who  thought  they  were  poor  ; 

And  men  who  twisted  their  waists  in  stays, 
And  women  that  shorthose  wore. 


62  THE   ENCHANTED    SHIRT. 

They  saw  two  men  by  the  roadside  sit, 

And  both  bemoaned  their  lot ; 
For  one  had  buried  his  wife,  he  said, 

And  the  other  one  had  not. 

At  last  as  they  came  to  a  village  gate, 

A  beggar  lay  whistling  there  ; 
He  whistled  and  sang  and  laughed  and  rolled 

On  the  grass  in  the  soft  June  air. 

The  weary  couriers  paused  and  looked 

At  the  scamp  so  blithe  and  gay ; 
And  one  of  them  said,  "  Heaven  save  you,  friend  ! 
'     You  seem  to  be  happy  to-day." 

"O  yes,  fair  sirs,"  the  rascal  laughed 
And  his  voice  rang  free  and  glad, 


THE    ENCHANTED    SHIRT.  63 

"  An  idle  man  has  so  much  to  do 
That  he  never  has  time  to  be  sad." 

"  This  is  our  man,"  the  courier  said ; 

"  Our  luck  has  led  us  aright. 
"  I  will  give  you  a  hundred  ducats,  friend, 

For  the  loan  of  your  shirt  to-night." 

The  merry  blackguard  lay  back  on  the  grass, 
And  laughed  till  his  face  was  black ; 

"  I  would  do  it,  God  wot,"  and  he  roared  with  the  fun, 
"  But  I  have  n't  a  shirt  to  my  back." 


Fytte  ye  Third :  Shewing  how  Hys  Majestie  ye  King  came  at  last  to 
sleepe  in  a  Happie  Man  his  Shirte. 

Each  day  to  the  King  the  reports  came  in 
Of  his  unsuccessful  spies, 


64  THE   ENCHANTED   SHIRT. 

And  the  sad  panorama  of  human  woes 
Passed  daily  under  his  eyes. 

And  he  grew  ashamed  of  his  useless  life, 
And  his  maladies  hatched  in  gloom  ; 

He  opened  his  windows  and  let  the  air 
Of  the  free  heaven  into  his  room. 

And  out  he  went  in  the  world  and  toiled 

In  his  own  appointed  way ; 
And  the  people  blessed  him,  the  land  was  glad, 

And  the  King  was  well  and  gay. 


A    WOMAN'S    LOVE. 


A     SENTINEL  angel  sitting  high  in  glory 

Heard  this  shrill  wail  ring  out  from  Purgatory 
"  Have  mercy,  mighty  angel,  hear  my  story  ! 


"  I  loved,  —  and,  blind  with  passionate  love,  I  fell. 
Love  brought  me  down  to  death,  and  death  to  Hell. 
I   For  God  is  just,  and  death  for  sin  is  well. 

• 
"  I  do  not  rage  against  his  high  decree, 

Nor  for  myself  do  ask  that  grace  shall  be  ; 
But  for  my  love  on  earth  who  mourns  for  me. 

E 


66  A   WOMAN'S   LOVE. 

"  Great  Spirit !     Let  me  see  my  love  again 
And  comfort  him  one  hour,  and  I  were  fain 
To  pay  a  thousand  years  of  fire  and.  pain." 

Then  said  the  pitying  angel,  "  Nay,  repent 
That  wild  vow  !     Look,  the  dial-finger  's  bent 
Down  to  the  last  hour  of  thy  punishment !  " 

But  still  she  wailed,  "  I  pray  thee,  let  me  go  ! 
I  cannot  rise  to  peace  and  leave  him  so. 
O,  let  me  soothe  him  in  his  bitter  woe  I " 

The  brazen  gates  ground  sullenly  ajar, 
And  upward,  joyous,  like  a  rising  star, 
She  rose  and  vanished  in  the  ether  far. 

But  soon  adown  the  dying  sunset  sailing, 
And  like  a  wounded  bird  her  pinions  trailing, 
She  fluttered  back,  with  broken-hearted  wailing. 


A   WOMAN'S    LOVE.  6/ 

She  sobbed,  "I  found  him  by  the  summer  sea 
Reclined,  his  head  upon  a  maiden's  knee,  — 
She  curled  his  hair  and  kissed  him.     Woe  is  me  !  " 

She  wept,  "  Now  let  my  punishment  begin  ! 
I  have  been  fond  and  foolish.     Let  me  in 
To  expiate  my  sorrow  and  my  sin." 

The  angel  answered,  "  Nay,  sad  soul,  go  higher  ! 
To  be  deceived  in  your  true  heart's  desire 
iWas  bitterer  than  a  thousand  years  of  fire  ! " 


ON    PITZ    LANGUARD. 

T    STOOD  on  the  top  of  Pitz  Languard, 

And  heard  three  voices  whispering  low, 
Where  the  Alpine  birds  in  their  circling  ward 
Made  swift  dark  shadows  upon  the  snow. 

First  voice. 
I  loved  a  girl  with  truth  and  pain, 

She  loved  me  not.     When  she  said  good  -by 
She  gave  me  a  kiss  to  sting  and  stain 

My  broken  life  to  a  rosy  dye. 

Second  voice. 

I  loved  a  woman  with  love  well  tried,  — 
And  I  swear  I  believe  she  loves  me  still. 


ON    PITZ   LANGUARD.  69 

But  it  was  not  I  who  stood  by  her  side 

When  she  answered  the  priest  and  said    "I  will." 

Third  voice. 
I  loved  two  girls,  one  fond,  one  shy, 

And  I  never  divined  which  one  loved  me. 
One  married,  and  now,  though  I  can't  tell  why, 

Of  the  four  in  the  story  I  count  but  three. 

The  three  weird  voices  whispered  low 

Where  the  eagles  swept  in  their  circling  ward  ; 

But  only  one  shadow  scarred  the  snow 
As  I  clambered  down  from  Pitz  Languard. 


NEW  AND    OLD. 


IN   CHURCH. 

T    NEVER  may  know  the  peace  that  sleeps 
In  the  light  serene  of  your  kindly  eyes, 
As  true  as  the  sentinel-star  that  keeps 

His  circling  tryst  in  the  boreal  skies. 
Unknown  to  me  is  the  faith  they  speak, 

And  strange  the  flash  of  their  silent  prayer, 
And  the  sacred  joy  that  climbs  your  cheek 

To  hang  its  fluttering  signals  there. 

As  the  star-beams  light  on  the  tossing  brine 
And  hallow  the  surge  of  its  wild  unrest, 

Your  eyes  in  their  tender  pity  shine 

To  light  the  gloom  of  my  doubting  breast 
4 


74  IN    CHURCH. 

And  hope  springs  up  in  their  earnest  gleams 
As  a  flower  that  leaps  from  the  sun-kissed  sod, 

And  I  love  their  light  as  a  beacon  that  beams 
To  lead  me  trustingly  up  to  God. 

If  ever  I  stand  by  the  jasper  sea, 

Whose  bright  waves  flash  in  their  awful  pride, 
The  mingled  strain  of  my  thanks  shall  be 

That  you  have  lived  and  that  Christ  has  died. 
By  the  life-stream  glassing  the  Eden-flowers 

I  will  walk  with  you  under  shadowless  skies, 
And  on  forever  through  amaranth  bowers 

I  will  follow  the  light  of  your  guiding  eyes. 


REMORSE. 

OAD  is  the  thought  of  sunniest  days 

Of  love  and  rapture  perished, 
And  shine  through  memory's  tearful  haze 

The  eyes  once  fondliest  cherished. 
Reproachful  is  the  ghost  of  toys 

That  charmed  while  life  was  wasted. 
But  saddest  is  the  thought  of  joys 

That  never  yet  were  tasted. 

Sad  is  the  vague  and  tender  dream 
Of  dead  love's  lingering  kisses, 

To  crushed  hearts  haloed  by  the  gleam 
Of  unreturning  blisses ; 


76  REMORSE. 

Deep  mourns  the  soul  in  anguished  pride 
For  the  pitiless  death  that  won  them,  — 

But  the  saddest  wail  is  for  lips  that  died 
With  the  virgin  dew  upon  them. 


ESSE   QUAM   VIDERL 

knightly  legend  of  thy  shield  betrays 
The  moral  of  thy  life  ;  a  forecast  wise, 

And  that  large  honor  that  deceit  defies, 
Inspired  thy  fathers  in  the  elder  days, 
Who  decked  thy  scutcheon  with  that  sturdy  phrase, 

To  be  rather  than  seem.     As  eve's  red  skies 

Surpass  the  morning's  rosy  prophecies, 
Thy  life  to  that  proud  boast  its  answer  pays, 
Scorning  thy  faith  and  purpose  to  defend 

The  ever-mutable  multitude  at  last 

Will  hail  the  power  they  did  not  comprehend,  — 
Thy  fame  will  broaden  through  the  centuries  ; 

As,  storm  and  billowy  tumult  overpast, 

The  moon  rules  calmly  o'er  the  conquered  seas. 


WHEN   THE   BOYS    COME    HOME. 

r  I  ^HERE  's  a  happy  time  coming1, 

When  the  boys  come  home. 
There  's  a  glorious  day  coming, 

When  the  boys  come  home. 
We  will  end  the  dreadful  story 
Of  this  treason  dark  and  gory 
In  a  sunburst  of  glory, 

When  the  boys  come  home. 

The  day  will  seem  brighter 

When  the  boys  come  home, 
For  our  hearts  will  be  lighter 

When  the  boys  come  home. 


WHEN  THE  BOYS  COME  HOME 

Wives  and  sweethearts  will  press  them 
In  their  arms  and  caress  them, 
And  pray  God  to  bless  them, 
When  the  boys  come  home. 

The  thinned  ranks  will  be  proudest 

When  the  boys  come  home, 
And  their  cheer  will  ring  the  loudest 

When  the  boys  come  home. 

The  full  ranks  will  be  shattered, 

And  the  bright  arms  will  be  battered, 

And  the  battle-standards  tattered, 

When  the  boys  come  home. 

Their  bayonets  may  be  rusty, 
When  the  boys  come  home, 

And  their  uniforms  dusty, 
When  the  boys  come  home. 


8O  WHEN    THE    BOYS    COME    HOME. 

But  all  shall  see  the  traces 
Of  battle's  royal  graces, 
In  the  brown  and  bearded  faces, 
When  the  boys  come  home. 

Our  love  shall  go  to  meet  them, 

When  the  boys  come  home, 
To  bless  them  and  to  greet  them, 

When  the  boys  come  home; 
And  the  fame  of  their  endeavor 
Time  and  change  shall  not  dissever 
From  the  nation's  heart  forever, 
When  the  boys  come  home. 


LESE-AMOUR. 

T  T  OW  well  my  heart  remembers 
Beside  these  camp-fire  embers 
The  eyes  that  smiled  so  far  away,  — 
The  joy  that  was  November's. 

Her  voice  to  laughter  moving, 
So  merrily  reproving,  — 
We  wandered  through  the  autumn  woods, 
And  neither  thought  of  loving. 

The  hills  with  light  were  glowing, 
The  waves  in  joy  were  flowing,  — 
It  was  not  to  the  clouded  sun 
The  day's  delight  was  owing. 

4*  F 


82  LESE-AMOUR. 

Though  through  the  brown  leaves  straying, 
Our  lives  seemed  gone  a-Maying ; 
We  knew  not  Love  was  with  us  there, 
No  look  nor  tone  betraying. 

How  unbelief  still  misses 
The  best  of  being's  blisses  ! 
Our  parting  saw  the  first  and  last 
Of  love's  imagined  kisses. 

Now  'mid  these  scenes  the  drearest 
I  dream  of  her,  the  dearest,  — 
Whose  eyes  outshine  the  Southern  stars, 
So  far,  and  yet  the  nearest. 

And  Love,  so  gayly  taunted, 
Who  died,  no  welcome  granted, 


LESE-AMOUR.  83 

Comes  to  me  now,  a  pallid  ghost, 
By  whom  my  life  is  haunted. 

With  bonds  I  may  not  sever, 
He  binds  my  heart  forever, 
And  leads  me  where  we  murdered  him,  — 
The  Hill  beside  the  River. 

CAMP  SHAW,  FLORIDA,  February,  1864. 


NORTHWARD. 

T  TNDER  the  high  unclouded  sun 

That  makes  the  ship  and  shadow  one, 
I  sail  away  as  from  the  fort 
Booms  sullenly  the  noonday  gun. 

The  odorous  airs  blow  thin  and  fine, 
The  sparkling  waves  like  emeralds  shine, 

The  lustre  of  the  coral  reefs 
Gleams  whitely  through  the  tepid  brine. 

And  glitters  o'er  the  liquid  miles 
The  jewelled  ring  of  verdant  isles, 

Where  generous  Nature  holds  her  court 
Of  ripened  bloom  and  sunny  smiles. 


NORTHWARD.  85 

Encinctured  by  the  faithful  seas 
Inviolate  gardens  load  the  breeze, 

Where  flaunt  like  giant-warders'  plumes 
The  pennants  of  the  cocoa-trees. 

Enthroned  in  light  and  bathed  in  balm, 
In  lonely  majesty  the  Palm 

Blesses  the  isles  with  waving  hands, — 
High-Priest  of  the  eternal  Calm. 

Yet  Northward  with  an  equal  mind 
I  steer  my  course,  and  leave  behind 

The  rapture  of  the  Southern  skies,  — 
The  wooing  of  the  Southern  wind. 

For  here  o'er  Nature's  wanton  bloom 
Falls  far  and  near  the  shade  of  gloom, 


86  NORTHWARD. 

Cast  from  the  hovering  vulture-wings 
Of  one  dark  thought  of  woe  and  doom. 

I  know  that  in  the  snow-white  pines 
The  brave  Norse  fire  of  freedom  shines, 

And  fain  for  this  I  leave  the  land 
Where  endless  summer  pranks  the  vines. 

O  strong,  free  North,  so  wise  and  brave ! 
O  South,  too  lovely  for  a  slave  ! 

Why  read  ye  not  the  changeless  truth, 
The  free  can  conquer  but  to  save  ? 

May  God  upon  these  shining  sands 
Send  Love  and  Victory  clasping  hands, 

And  Freedom's  banners  wave  in  peace 
Forever  o'er  the  rescued  lands  ! 


NORTHWARD.  8/ 

And  here,  in  that  triumphant  hour, 
Shall  yielding  Beauty  wed  with  Power  ; 

And  blushing  earth  and  smiling  sea 
In  dalliance  deck  the  bridal  bower. 


IN    THE    FIRELIGHT. 

IV  /T  Y  dear  wife  sits  beside  the  fire 

With  folded  hands  and  dreaming  eyes, 

Watching  the  restless  flames  aspire, 
And  wrapped  in  thralling  memories. 

I  mark  the  fitful  firelight  fling 
Its  warm  caresses  on  her  brow, 
And  kiss  her  hands'  unmelting  snow, 

And  glisten  on  her  wedding-ring. 

The  proud  free  head  that  crowns  so  well 
The  neck  superb,  whose  outlines  glide 

Into  the  bosom's  perfect  swell 
Soft-billowed  by  its  peaceful  tide, 


IN    THE   FIRELIGHT.  89 

The  cheek's  faint  flush,  the  lip's  red  glow, 
The  gracious  charm  her  beauty  wears, 
Fill  my  fond  eyes  with  tender  tears 

As  in  the  days  of  long  ago. 

Days  long  ago,  when  in  her  eyes 
The  only  heaven  I  cared  for  lay, 

When  from  our  thoughtless  Paradise 
All  care  and  toil  dwelt  far  away  ; 

When  Hope  in  wayward  fancies  throve, 
And  rioted  in  secret  sweets, 
Beguiled  by  Passion's  dear  deceits, — 

The  mysteries  of  maiden  love. 

One  year  had  passed  since  first  my  sight 
Was  gladdened  by  her  girlish  charms, 

When  on  a  rapturous  summer  night 
I  clasped  her  in  possessing  arms. 


9°  IN    THE    FIRELIGHT. 

And  now  ten  years  have  rolled  away, 
And  left  such  blessings  as  their  dower, 
I  owe  her  tenfold  at  this  hour 

The  love  that  lit  our  wedding-day. 

For  now,  vague-hovering  o'er  her  form, 
My  fancy  sees,  by  love  refined, 

A  warmer  and  a  dearer  charm 

By  wedlock's  mystic  hands  intwined,  — 

A  golden  coil  of  wifely  cares 

That  years  have  forged,  the  loving  joy 
That  guards  the  curly-headed  boy 

Asleep  an  hour  ago  up  stairs. 

A  fair  young  mother,  pure  as  fair, 
A  matron  heart  and  virgin  soul ! 

The  flickering  light  that  crowns  her  hair 
Seems  like  a  saintly  aureole. 


IN   THE   FIRELIGHT.  QI 

A  tender  sense  upon  me  falls 
That  joy  unmerited  is  mine, 
And  in  this  pleasant  twilight  shine 

My  perfect  bliss  myself  appalls. 

Come  back !  my  darling,  strayed  so  far 

Into  the  realm  of  fantasy,  — 
Let  thy  dear  face  shine  like  a  star 

In  love-light  beaming  over  me. 
My  melting  soul  is  jealous,  sweet, 

Of  thy  long  silence'  drear  eclipse, 

O  kiss  me  back  with  living  lips 
To  life,  love,  lying  at  thy  feet ! 


AFTER   HEINE. 

T~\  7 HEN  I  look  on  thee  and  feel  how  dear, 

How  pure,  and  how  fair  thou  art, 
Into  my  eyes  there  steals  a  tear, 
And  a  shadow  mingled  of  love  and  fear 
Creeps  slowly  over  my  heart. 

And  my  very  hands  feel  as  if  they  would  lay 

Themselves  on  thy  fair  young  head, 
And  pray  the  good  God  to  keep  thee  alway 
As  good  and  lovely,  as  pure  and  gay, — 
When  I  and  my  wild  love  are  dead. 


IN   A  GRAVEYARD. 

T  N  the  dewy  depths  of  the  graveyard 

I  lie  in  the  tangled  grass, 
And  watch,  in  the  sea  of  azure, 
The  white  cloud-islands  pass. 

The  birds  in  the  rustling  branches 

Sing  gayly  overhead  ; 
Gray  stones  like  sentinel  spectres 

Are  guarding  the  silent  dead. 

The  early  flowers  sleep  shaded 

In  the  cool  green  noonday  glooms  ; 

The  broken  light  falls  shuddering 

On  the  cold  white  face  of  the  tombs. 


IN   A    GRAVEYARD. 

Without,  the  world  is  smiling 
In  the  infinite  love  of  God, 

But  the  sunlight  fails  and  falters 

When  it  falls  on  the  churchyard  sod. 

On  me  the  joyous  rapture 
Of  a  heart's  first  love  is  shed, 

But  it  falls  on  my  heart  as  coldly 
As  sunlight  on  the  dead. 


THE   PRAIRIE. 

*nHHE  skies  are  blue  above  my  head, 

The  prairie  green  below, 
And  flickering  o'er  the  tufted  grass 

The  shifting  shadows  go, 
Vague-sailing,  where  the  feathery  clouds 

Fleck  white  the  tranquil  skies, 
Black  javelins  darting  where  aloft 

The  whirring  pheasant  flies. 

A  glimmering  plain  in  drowsy  trance 

The  dim  horizon  bounds, 
Where  all  the  air  is  resonant 

With  sleepy  summer  sounds,  — 


96  THE    PRAIRIE. 

The  life  that  sings  among  the  flowers, 
The  lisping  of  the  breeze, 

The  hot  cicala's  sultry  cry, 

The  murmurous  dream  of  bees. 

The  butterfly  —  a  flying  flower — 

Wheels  swift  in  flashing  rings, 
And  flutters  round  his  quiet  kin, 

With  brave  flame-mottled  wings. 
The  wild  Pinks  burst  in  crimson  fire, 

The  Phlox'  bright  clusters  shine, 
And  Prairie-Cups  are  swinging  free 

To  spill  their  airy  wine. 

And  lavishly  beneath  the  sun, 
In  liberal  splendor  rolled, 

The  Fennel  fills  the  dipping  plain 
With  floods  of  flowery  gold  ; 


THE    PRAIRIE.  97 

And  widely  weaves  the  Iron-Weed 

A  woof  of  purple  dyes 
Where  Autumn's  royal  feet  may  tread 

When  bankrupt  Summer  flies. 

In  verdurous  tumult  far  away 

The  prairie-billows  gleam, 
Upon  their  crests  in  blessing  rests 

The  noontide's  gracious  beam. 
Low  quivering  vapors  steaming  dim 

The  level  splendors  break 
Where  languid  Lilies  deck  the  rim 

Of  some  land-circled  lake. 

Far  in  the  East  like  low-hung  clouds 

The  waving  woodlands  lie  ; 
Far  in  the  West  the  glowing  plain 

Melts  warmly  in  the  sky 

5  G 


THE    PRAIRIE. 

No  accent  wounds  the  reverent  air, 
No  footprint  dints  the  sod,  — 

Lone  in  the  light  the  prairie  lies, 
Rapt  in  a  dream  of  God. 


CENTENNIAL. 

A     HUNDRED  times  the  bells  of  Brown 
Have  rung  to  sleep  the  idle  summers, 
And  still  to-day  clangs  clamoring  down 
A  greeting  to  the  welcome  comers. 

And  far,  like  waves  of  morning,  pours 
Her  call,  in  airy  ripples  breaking, 

And  wanders  to  the  farthest  shores, 
Her  children's  drowsy  hearts  awaking. 

The  wild  vibration  floats  along, 

O'er  heart-strings  tense  its  magic  plying, 
And  wakes  in  every  breast  its  song 

Of  love  and  gratitude  undying. 


TOO  CENTENNIAL. 

My  heart  to  meet  the  summons  leaps 

At  limit  of  its  straining  tether, 
Where  the  fresh  western  sunlight  steeps 

In  golden  flame  the  prairie  heather. 

And  others,  happier,  rise  and  fare 
To  pass  within  the  hallowed  portal, 

And  see  the  glory  shining  there 

Shrined  in  her  steadfast  eyes  immortal. 

What  though  their  eyes  be  dim  and  dull, 
Their  heads  be  white  in  reverend  blossom  ; 

Our  mother's  smile  is  beautiful 
As  when  she  bore  them  on  her  bosom  ! 

Her  heavenly  forehead  bears  no  line 
Of -Time's  iconoclastic  fingers, 


CENTENNIAL.  IOI 

But  o'er  her  form  the  grace  divine 

Of  deathless  youth  and  wisdom  lingers. 

We  fade  and  pass,  grow  faint  and  old, 

Till  youth  and  joy  and  hope  are  banished, 

And  still  her  beauty  seems  to  fold 
The  sum  of  all  the  glory  vanished. 

As  while  Tithonus  faltered  on 

The  threshold  of  the  Olympian  dawnings, 
Aurora's  front  eternal  shone 

With  lustre  of  the  myriad  mornings. 

So  joys  that  slip  like  dead  leaves  down, 
And  hopes  burnt  out  that  die  in  ashes, 

Rise  restless  from  their  graves  to  crown 
Our  mother's  brow  with  fadeless  flashes. 


IO2  CENTENNIAL. 

And  lives  wrapped  in  tradition's  mist 
These  honored  halls  to-day  are  haunting, 

And  lips  by  lips  long  withered  kissed 
The  sagas  of  the  past  are  chanting. 

Scornful  of  absence'  envious  bar 

BROWN  smiles  upon  the  mystic  meeting 

Of  those  her  sons,  who,  sundered  far, 
In  brotherhood  of  heart  are  greeting ; 

Her  wayward  children  wandering  on 
Where  setting  stars  are  lowly  burning, 

But  still  in  worship  toward  the  dawn 

That  gilds  their  souls'  dear  Mecca  turning ; 

Or  those  who,  armed  for  God's  own  fight, 

Stand  by  his  word  through  fire  and  slaughter, 


CENTENNIAL.  IO3 

Or  bear  our  banner's  starry  light 

Far-flashing  through  the  Gulf's  blue  water. 

For  where  one  strikes  for  light  and  truth 
The  right  to  aid,  the  wrong  redressing, 

The  mother  of  his  spirit's  youth 

Sheds  o'er  his  soul  her  silent  blessing. 

She  gained  her  crown  a  gem  of  flame 
When  KNEASS  fell  dead  in  victory  gory  ; 

New  splendor  blazed  upon  her  name 

When  IVES'  young  life  went  out  in  glory  ! 

Thus  bright  forever  may  she  keep 

Her  fires  of  tolerant  Freedom  burning, 

Till  War's  red  eyes  are  charmed  to  sleep 
And  bells  ring  home  the  boys  returning. 


IO4  CENTENNIAL. 

And  may  she  shed  her  radiant  truth 

In  largess  on  ingenuous  comers, 
And  hold  the  bloom  of  gracious  youth     . 

Through  many  a  hundred  tranquil  summers ! 


A    WINTER    NIGHT. 

r  I  AHE  winter  wind  is  raving  fierce  and  shrill 

And  chides  with  angry  moan  the  frosty  skies, 
The  white  stars  gaze  with  sleepless  Gorgon  eyes 

That  freeze  the  earth  in  terror  fixed  and  still. 

We  reck  not  of  the  wild  night's  gloom  and  chill, 
Housed  ffom  its  rage,  dear  friend  ;  and  fancy  flies, 
Lured  by  the  hand  of  beckoning  memories, 

Back  to  those  summer  evenings  on  the  hill 

Wrhere  we  together  watched  the  sun  go  down 
Beyond  the  gold-washed  uplands,  while  his  fires 
Touched  into  glittering  life  the  vanes  and  spires 

Piercing  the  purpling  mists  that  veiled  the  town. 
The  wintry  night  thy  voice  and  eyes  beguile, 
Till  wake  the  sleeping  summers  in  thy  smile. 
5* 


STUDENT-SONG. 

VI  7  HEN  Youth's  warm  heart  beats  high,  my  friend, 

And  Youth's  blue  sky  is  bright, 
And  shines  in  Youth's  clear  eye,  my  friend, 

Love's  early  dawning  light, 
Let  the  free  soul  spurn  care's  control, 

And  while  the  glad  days  shine, 
We'll  use  their  beams  for  Youth's  gay  dreams 

Of  Love  and  Song  and  Wine. 

Let  not  the  bigot's  frown,  my  friend, 

O'ercast  thy  brow  with  gloom, 
For  Autumn's  sober  brown,  my  friend, 

Shall  follow  Summer's  bloom. 


STUDENT-SONG.  IO/ 

Let  smiles  and  sighs  and  loving  eyes 

In  changeful  beauty  shine, 
And  shed  their  beams  on  Youth's  gay  dreams 

Of  Love  and  Song  and  Wine. 

For  in  the  weary  years,  my  friend, 

That  stretched  before  us  lie, 
There  '11  be  enough  of  tears,  my  friend, 

To  dim  the  brightest  eye. 
So  let  them  wait,  and  laugh  at  fate, 

While  Youth's  sweet  moments  shine,  — 
Till  memory  gleams  with  golden  dreams 

Of  Love  and  Song  and  Wine. 


.1.    CEDAR   MOUNTAIN. 

T  T  was  a  rare  good  fortune  to  our  arms, 

That,  when  the  flushed  foe  through  the  moun 
tains  poured, 

He  found  there  by  the  rushing  river-ford 
One  whose  calm  soul  was  stranger  to  alarms. 
Serene  amid  the  conflict's  fiery  harms, 

Master  of  fate,  of  his  own  spirit  lord, 

Like  that  stout  knight  on  whose  firm  mail  the  sword 
Clashed  shivering,  glanced,  nor  burst  the  faery  charms. 
An  Iron  Man  !  in  happier  days  that  name 

Hailed  him  the  peaceful  champion  of  the  North  ; 

And  now  the  faithful  years  have  blazoned  forth 


CEDAR    MOUNTAIN.  IOQ 

Its  splendid  prophecy  in  the  battle's  flame. 
Twice-fortunate    brow   where    grandly    darkening 

down 
The  warrior-laurel  shades  the  civic  crown  ! 


II.     PORT    HUDSON. 

A   GAIN  thy  name  the  listening  nation  thrills  ! 

Coy  Victory,  won  with  war's  importunate  roar, 
Crowns  thy  rough  wooing  by  the  Western  shore, 
As  once  amid  Virginia's  breezy  hills. 
The  mighty  thunder  of  thy  triumph  fills 
The  guilty  South  ;  its  stealthy  echoes  pour 
Through  treason-haunted  regions,  evermore 
Waking  wild  whispers,  and  the  nameless  ills 
Of  bondage  wasting  with  the  potent  light 
Of  hope  ;  for  slavery  death-stricken  lies 
Where  the  vague  fame  of  thy  black  warrior  flies. 
The  bloody  shapes  that  troubled  the  dead  night 
Of  woe  and  war  fade  as  the  dawn  grows  bright, 
And  day  comes  flushing  up  the  tranquil  skies. 


AT    SUNSET. 

T  NTO  the  grave  of  twilight 
The  red  gleam  fades  away, 
And  the  westering  clouds  grow  sombre 
With  love  of  the  dying  day. 
In  the  eve's  soft  flush 
The  gloaming's  hush 
Comes  down  on  the  rippled  bay. 

The  towering  hills  stand  saintly, 
Each  grand  head  halo-crowned, 

And  the  vagrant  shadows  wander 
To  the  slope  of  the  grassy  ground  ; 
The  languid  breeze 


112  AT    SUNSET. 

Stirs  not  the  trees 
In  the  trancing  twilight  bound. 

Now  climbs  the  vanishing  glimmer 

To  the  mountain's  umber  crest, 
The  sunset's  molten  glory 

Glows  gold  on  the  water's  breast; 
From  Heaven's  dim  crown 
Comes  kindly  down 
The  gracious  spirit  of  rest. 

The  cordial  soul  of  the  sunset 

Steals  warm  to  my  heart  like  wine, 
My  weary  eyes  look  fondly 
Far  over  the  glowing  brine; 
And  tenderly  beams 
In  a  mist  of  dreams 
A  joy  that  shall  never  be  mine. 


AT    SUNSET.  113 

Sweet  eyes  whose  proud  dark  splendor 

Is  melted  in  love's  soft  beams, 
The  still  queen-features  glorious 
In  the  dawn  of  love's  first  gleams  ; 
Imperial  lips 
In  the  dear  eclipse 
Of  passion's  tropical  dreams. 

Dear  Heaven  !  to  hear  the  ^rose-lips 

Breathe  falteringly  my  name, 
To  see  the  soft  cheek  flushing 
With  the  joy  of  maiden  shame ! 
And  feel  the  bliss 
Of  her  passionate  kiss 
Touch  every  vein  to  flame. 

And  my  saddened  love  seems  lovelier 
In  the  tender  evening  shine, 


114  AT   SUNSET. 

And  a  vague  hope  wakes  that  a  love  so  true 
With  an  answering  love  must  twine. 
That  Heaven  will  bend 
And  the  love  descend, 
'  For  ever  and  ever  mine ! 

Fades  the  fair  light  from  the  waters, — 

Cold  shimmer  the  stars  above, — 
The  desolate  night-wind  shudders 

Through  the  dusk  of  the  gloomy  grove. 
The  vision  is  gone, — 
I  sit  alone 
With  darkness  and  silence  and  love. 


HOW  IT   HAPPENED. 

T    PRAY  you,  pardon  me,  Elsie, 

And  smile  that  frown  away 
That  dims  the  light  of  your  lovely  face 

As  a  thunder-cloud  the  day. 
I  really  could  not  help  it,  — 

Before  I  thought,  Jt  was  done,  — 
And  those  great  gray  eyes  flashed  bright  and  cold, 

Like  an  icicle  in  the  sun. 

I  was  thinking  of  the  summers 

When  we  were  boys  and  girls, 
And  wandered  in  the  blossoming  woods, 

And  the  gay  winds  romped  with  your  curls. 


Il6  HOW    IT    HAPPENED. 

And  you  seemed  to  me  the  same  little  girl 

I  kissed  in  the  alder-path, 
I  kissed  the  little  girl's  lips,  and  alas  ! 

I  have  roused  a  woman's  wrath. 

There  is  not  so  much  to  pardon,  — 

For  why  were  your  lips  so  red  ? 
The  blond  hair  fell  in  a  shower  of  gold 

From  the  proud,  provoking  head. 
And  the  beauty  that  flashed  from  the  splendid  eyes 

And  played  round  the  tender  mouth, 
Rushed  over  my  soul  like  a  warm  sweet  wind 

That  blows  from  the  fragrant  south. 

And  where,  after  all,  is  the  harm  done  ? 

I  believe  we  were  made  to  be  gay, 
And  all  of  youth  not  given  to  love        \ 

Is  vainly  squandered  away. 


HOW    IT    HAPPENED. 

And  strewn  through  life's  low  labors, 

Like  gold  in  the  desert  sands, 
Are  love's  swift  kisses  and  sighs  and  vows 

And  the  clasp  of  clinging  hands. 

And  when  you  are  old  and  lonely, 

In  Memory's  magic  shine 
You  will  see  on  your  thin  and  wasting  hands, 

Like  gems,  these  kisses  of  mine. 
And  when  you  muse  at  evening 

At  the  sound  of  some  vanished  name, 
The  ghost  of  my  kisses  shall  touch  your  lips 

And  kindle  your  heart  to  flame. 


GOD'S   VENGEANCE. 

QAITH  the  Lord,  "Vengeance  is  mine; 

I  will  repay,"  saith  the  Lord  ; 
Ours  be  the  anger  divine, 
Lit  by  the  flash  of  his  word. 

How  shall  his  vengeance  be  done  ? 

How,  when  his  purpose  is  clear  ? 
Must  he  come  down  from  his  throne  ? 

Hath  he  no  instruments  here  ? 

Sleep  not  in  imbecile  trust 
Waiting  for  God  to  begin, 


GODS    VENGEANCE. 

While,  growing  strong  in  the  dust, 
Rests  the  bruised  serpent  of  sin. 

Right  and  Wrong,  —  both  cannot  live 
Death-grappled.     Which  shall  we  see? 

Strike  !  only  Justice  can  give 
Safety  to  all  that  shall  be. 

Shame  !  to  stand  paltering  thus, 
Tricked  by  the  balancing  odds  ; 

Strike  !  God  is  waiting  for  us  ! 

Strike !  for  the  vengeance  is  God's. 


TOO   LATE. 

T  T  AD  we  but  met  in  other  days, 

Had  we  but  loved  in  other  ways, 
Another  light  and  hope  had  shone 
On  your  life  and  my  own. 

In  sweet  but  hopeless  reveries 
I  fancy  how  your  wistful  eyes 
Had  saved  me,  had  I  known  their  power 
In  fate's  imperious  hour ; 

How  loving  you,  beloved  of  God, 
And  following  you,  the  path  I  trod 
Had  led  me,  through  your  love  and  prayers, 
To  God's  love  unawares : 


TOO   LATE.  121 

And  how  our  beings  joined  as  one 
Had  passed  through  checkered  shade  and  sun, 
Until  the  earth  our  lives  had  given, 
With  little  change,  to  heaven. 

God  knows  why  this  was  not  to  be. 
You  bloomed  from  childhood  far  from  me, 
The  sunshine  of  the  favored  place 

That  knew  your  youth  and  grace. 

And  when  your  eyes,  so  fair  and  free, 
In  fearless  beauty  beamed  on  me, 
I  knew  the  fatal  die  was  thrown, 
My  choice  in  life  was  gone. 

And  still  with  wild  and  tender  art 

Your  child-love  touched  my  torpid  heart, 
6 


122  TOO    LATE. 

Gilding  the  blackness  where  it  fell, 
Like  sunlight  over  hell. 

In  vain,  in  vain !   my  choice  was  gone ! 
Better  to  struggle  on  alone 
Than  blot  your  pure  life's  blameless  shine 
With  cloudy  stains  of  mine. 

A  vague  regret,  a  troubled  prayer, 
And  then  the  future  vast  and  fair 
Will  tempt  your  young  and  eager  eyes 
With  all  its  glad  surprise. 

And  I  shall  watch  you,  safe  and  far, 
As  some  late  traveller  eyes  a  star 
Wheeling  beyond  his  desert  sands 
To  gladden  happier  lands. 


LOVE'S   DOUBT. 

'HP  IS  love  that  blinds  my  heart  and  eyes,  - 
I  sometimes  say  in  doubting  dreams,  — 
The  face  that  near  me  perfect  seems 
Cold  Memory  paints  in  fainter  dyes. 

*T  was  but  love's  dazzled  eyes  —  I  say  — 
That  made  her  seem  so  strangely  bright ; 
The  face  I  worshipped  yesternight, 

I  dread  to  meet  it  changed  to-day. 

As,  when  dies  out  some  song's  refrain, 
And  leaves  your  eyes  in  happy  tears, 
Awake  the  same  fond  idle  fears, — 

It  cannot  sound  so  sweet  again. 


124  LOVES    DOUBT. 

You  wait  and  say  with  vague  annoy, 
"  It  will  not  sound  so  sweet  again," 
Until  comes  back  the  wild  refrain 

That  floods  your  soul  with  treble  joy. 

So  when  I  see  my  love  again 
Fades  the  unquiet  doubt  away, 
While  shines  her  beauty  like  the  day 

Over  my  happy  heart  and  brain. 

And  in  that  face  I  see  no  more 
The  fancied  faults  I  idly  dreamed, 
But  all  the  charms  that  /airest  seemed, 

I  find  them,  fairer  than  before. 


LAGRIMAS. 

/^  OD  send  me  tears  ! 

Loose  the  fierce  band  that  binds  my  tired  brain, 
Give  me  the  melting  heart  of  other  years, 

And  let  me  weep  again ! 

Before  me  pass 

The  shapes  of  things  inexorably  true. 
Gone  is  the  sparkle  of  transforming  dew 

From  every  blade  of  grass. 

In  life's  high  noon 

Aimless  I  stand,  my  promised  task  undone, 
And  raise  my  hot  eyes  to  the  angry  sun 

That  will  go  down  too  soon. 


126  LAGRIMAS. 

Turned  into  gall 

Are  the  sweet  joys  of  childhood's  sunny  reign  ; 
And  memory  is  a  torture,  love  a  chain 

That  binds  my  life  in  thrall. 

And  childhood's  pain 

Could  to  me  now  the  purest  rapture  yield  ; 
I  pray  for  tears  as  in  his  parching  field 

The  husbandman  for  rain. 

We  pray  in  vain  ! 

The  sullen  sky  flings  down  its  blaze  of  brass  ; 
The  joys  of  life  all  scorched  and  withering  pass  ; 

I  shall  not  weep  again. 


COUNTESS  JUTTA. 

FROM   THE   GERMAN    OF   HEINRICH   HEINE. 


'T^HE  Countess  Jutta  passed  over  the  Rhine 

In  a  light  canoe  by  the  moon's  pale  shine. 
The  handmaid  rows  and  the  Countess  speaks  : 
"  Seest  thou  not  there  where  the  water  breaks 
Seven  corpses  swim 
In  the  moonlight  dim  ? 
So  sorrowful  swim  the  dead  ! 

"  They  were  seven  knights  full  of  fire  and  youth, 
They  sank  on  my  heart  and  swore  me  truth. 
I  trusted  them  ;  but  for  Truth's  sweet  sake, 


128  COUNTESS  JUTTA. 

Lest  they  should  be  tempted  their  oaths  to  break, 

I  had  them  bound, 

And  tenderly  drowned  ! 
So  sorrowful  swim  the  dead ! " 

The  merry  Countess  laughed  outright! 
It  rang  so  wild  in  the  startled  night ! 
Up  to  the  waist  the  dead  men  rise 
And  stretch  lean  fingers  to  the  skies. 

They  nod  and  stare 

With  a  glassy  glare ! 
So  sorrowful  swim  the  dead  I 


ON   THE   BLUFF. 

/^v   GRANDLY  flowing  River ! 

O  silver-gliding  River ! 
Thy  springing  willows  shiver 

In  the  sunset  as  of  old ; 
They  shiver  in  the  silence 
Of  the  willow-whitened  islands, 
While  the  sun-bars  and  the  sand-bars 

Fill  air  and  wave  with  gold. 

O  gay,  oblivious  River! 
O  sunset-kindled  River  ! 
Do  you  remember  ever 

The  eyes  and  skies  so  blue 
6* 


I3O  ON    THE    BLUFF. 

On  a  summer  day  that  shone  here, 
When  we  were  all  alone  here, 
And  the  blue  eyes  were  too  wise 
To  speak  the  love  they  knew? 

O  stern  impassive  River  ! 
O  still  unanswering  River ! 
The  shivering  willows  quiver 

As  the  night-winds  moan  and  rave. 
From  the  past  a  voice  is  calling, 
From  heaven  a  star  is  falling, 
And  dew  swells  in  the  bluebells 

Above  her  hillside  grave. 


GOOD    AND    BAD    LUCK. 

FROM   THE    GERMAN    OF    HEINE. 

OOD  LUCK  is  the  gayest  of  all  gay  girls, 

Long  in  one  place  she  will  not  stay, 
Back  from  your  brow  she  strokes  the  curls, 
Kisses  you  quick  and  flies  away. 

But  Madame  Bad  Luck  soberly  comes 

And  stays, — no  fancy  has  she  for' flitting, — 

Snatches  of  true  love-songs  she  hums, 
And  sits  by  your  bed,  and  brings  her  knitting. 


UNA. 


T  N"  the  whole  wide  world  there  was  but  one, 

Others  for  others,  but  she  was  mine, 
The  one  fair  woman  beneath  the  sun. 


From  her  gold-flax  curls'  most  marvellous  shine 
Down  to  the  lithe  and  delicate  feet 
There  was  not  a  curve  nor  a  waving  line 

But  moved  in  a  harmony  firm  and  sweet 
With  all  of  passion  my  life  could  know. 
By  knowledge  perfect  and  faith  complete 

I  was  bound  to  her,  —  as  the  planets  go 
Adoring  around  their  central  star, 
Free,  but  united  for  weal  or  woe. 


UNA.  133 

% 

She  was  so  near  and  Heaven  so  far  — 
She  grew  my  heaven  and  law  and  fate 
Rounding  my  life  with  a  mystic  bar 

No  thought  beyond  could  violate. 

Our  l&ve  to  fulness  in  silence  nursed 

Grew  calm  as  morning,  when  through  the  gate 

Of  the  glimmering  East  the  sun  has  burst, 
With  his  hot  life  filling  the  waiting  air. 
She  kissed  me  once,  —  that  last  and  first 

Of  her  maiden  kisses  was  placid  as  prayer. 

Against  all  comers  I  sat  with  lance 

In  rest,  and,  drunk  with  my  joy,  I  sware 

Defiance  and  scorn  to  the  world's  worst  chance. 

In  vain  !  for  soon  unhorsed  I  lay 

At  the  feet  of  the  strong  god  Circumstance  — 


134  UNA. 

And  never  again  shall  break  the  day, 

And  never  again  shall  fall  the  night 

That  shall  light  me,  or  shield  me,  on  my  way 

To  the  presence  of  my  sad  soul's  delight. 
Her  dead  love  comes  like  a  passionate  ghost 
To  -mourn  the  Body  it  held  so  light, 

And  Fate,  like  a  hound  with  a  purpose  lost, 
Goes  round  bewildered  with  shame  and  fright. 


the  long  days  and  years 
What  will  my  loved  one  be, 

Parted  from  me  ? 
Through  the  long  days  and  years. 

Always  as  then  she  was 

Loveliest,  brightest,  best, 

Blessing  and  blest, — 
Always  as  then  she  was. 

Never  on  earth  again 

Shall  I  before  her  stand,   , 

Touch  lip  or  hand, — 
Never  on  earth  again. 


136       "THROUGH   THE   LONG   DAYS   AND    YEARS." 

But  while  my  darling  lives 
Peaceful  I  journey  on, 
Not  quite  alone, 
Not  while  my  darling  lives. 


A  PHYLACTERY. 

"\  T  7ISE  men  I  hold  those  rakes  of  old 
Who,  as  we  read  in  antique  story, 
When  lyres  were  struck  and  wine  was  poured, 
Set  the  white  Death's  Head  on  the  board  — 
Memento  mori. 

Love  well !    love  truly !  and  love  fast ! 

True  love  evades  the  dilatory. 
Life's  bloom  flares  like  a  meteor  past ; 
A  joy  so  dazzling  cannot  last  — 
Memento  mori. 

Stop  not  to  pluck  the  leaves  of  bay 
That  greenly  deck  the  path  of  glory, 


3  A    PHYLACTERY. 

The  wreath  will  wither  if  you  stay, 
So  pass  along  your  earnest  way  — 
Memento  mori. 

Hear  but  not  heed,  though  wild  and  shrill, 

The  cries  of  faction  transitory; 
Cleave  to  your  good,  eschew  your  ill, 
A  Hundred  Years  and  all  is  still  — 
Memento  mori. 

When  Old  Age  comes  with  muffled  drums, 
That  beat  to  sleep  our  tired  life's  story, 
On  thoughts  of  dying,  (Rest  is  good  ! ) 
Like  old  snakes  coiled  i'  the  sun,  we  brood 
Memento  mori. 


,x^ 


BLONDINE. 

T   WANDERED  through  a  careless  world, 

Deceived  when  not  deceiving, 
And  never  gave  an  idle  heart 

The  rapture  of  believing. 
The  smiles,  the  sighs,  the  glancing  eyes, 

Of  many  hundred  comers 
Swept  by  me,  light  as  rose-leaves  blown 

From  long-forgotten  summers. 

But  never  eyes  so  deep  and  bright 

And  loyal  in  their  seeming, 
And  never  smiles  so  full  of  light 

Have  shone  upon  my  dreaming. 


I4O  BLONDINE. 

The  looks  and  lips  so  gay  and  wise, 

The  thousand  charms  that  wreathe  them, 

—  Almost  I  dare  believe  that  truth 
Is  safely  shrined  beneath  them. 

Ah  !  do  they  shine,  those  eyes  of  thine, 

But  for  our  own  misleading? 
The  fresh  young  smile,  so  pure  and  fine, 

Does  it  but  mock  our  reading  ? 
Then  faith  is  fled,  and  trust  is  dead, 

And  unbelief  grows  duty, 
If  fraud  can  wield  the  triple  arm 

Of  youth  and  wit  and  beauty. 


DISTICHES. 


\  X  7ISELY  a  woman   prefers  to  a  lover  a   man 

who  neglects  her. 

This  one  may  love  her  some  day,  some  day  the 
lover  will  not. 

ii. 
There    are   three   species    of  creatures    who    when 

they  seem  coming  are  going, 
When  they  seem  going  they  come  :   Diplomates, 
womeji,  and  crabs. 

in. 

Pleasures   too   hastily  tasted  grow  sweeter  in   fond 
recollection, 


142  DISTICHES. 

As    the   pomegranate   plucked   green   ripens  far 
over  the  sea. 

IV. 

As  the   meek  beasts   in  the  Garden  came  flocking 

for  Adam  to  name  them, 

Men   for    a   title   to-day  crawl   to  the   feet   of    a 
king. 

v. 

What  is  a  first  love  worth,  except  to  prepare  for  a 

second  ? 

What  does  the  second  love  bring  ?     Only  regret 
for  the  first. 

VI. 

Health    was   wooed   by  the  Romans   in  groves    of 

the  laurel  and  myrtle. 

Happy   and   long   are    the    lives    brightened    by 
glory  and  love. 


REGARDANT. 


A   S  I  lay  at  your  feet  that  afternoon, 

Little  we  spoke,  —  you  sat  and  mused, 
Humming  a  sweet  old-fashioned  tune, 


And  I  worshipped  you,  with  a  sense  confused 
Of  the  good  time  gone  and  the  bad  on  the  way, 
While  my  hungry  eyes  your  face  perused 

» 
To  catch  and  brand  on  my  soul  for  aye 

The  subtle  smile  which  had  grown  my  doom. 
Drinking  sweet  poison  hushed  I  lay 

Till  the  sunset  shimmered  athwart  the  room. 

I  rose  to  go.     You  stood  so  fair 

And  dim  in  the  dead  day's  tender  gloom: 


144  REGARDANT. 

All  at  once,  or  ever  I  was  aware, 

Flashed  from  you  on  me  a  warm  strong  wave 

Of  passion  and  power ;  in  the  silence  there 

I  fell  on  my  knees,  like  a  lover,  or  slave, 

With  my  wild  hands  clasping  your  slender  waist ; 

And  my  lips,  with  a  sudden  frenzy  brave, 

A  madman's  kiss  on  your  girdle  pressed, 
And  I  felt  your  calm  heart's  quickening  beat, 
And  your  soft  hands  on  me  one  instant  rest. 

And  if  God  had  loved  me,  how  endlessly  sweet 
Had  he  let  my  heart  in  its  rapture  burst, 
And  throb  its  last  at  your  firm  small  feet  ! 

And  when  I  was  forth,  I  shuddered  at  first 
At  my  imminent  bliss.     As  a  soul  in  pain, 
Treading  his  desolate  path  accursed, 


REGARDANT.  145 

Looks    back    and    dreams    through   his    tears'    dim 

rain 

That  by  Heaven's  wide  gate  the  angels  smile, 
Relenting,  and  beckon  him  back  again, 

And  goes  on,  thrice  damned  by  that  devil's  wile, — 

So  sometimes  burns  in  my  weary  brain 

The  thought  that  you  loved  me  all  the  while. 


D 


GUY   OF   THE  TEMPLE. 

OWN   the   dim   West   slow  fails    the   stricken 

sun, 

And  from  his  hot  face  fades  the  crimson  flush 
Veiled  in  death's  herald-shadows  sick  and  gray. 
Silent  and  dark  the  sombre  valley  lies 
Forgotten  ;  happy  in  the  late  fond  beams 
Glimmer  the  constant  waves  of  Galilee. 
Afar,  below,  in  airy  music  ring 
The  bugles  of  my  host ;  the  column  halts, 
A  weaned  serpent  glittering  in  the  vale, 
Where  rising  mist-like  gleam  the  tented  camps. 

Pitch  my  pavilion  here,  where  its  high  cross 
May  catch  the  last  light  lingering  on  the  hill. 


GUY    OF    THE    TEMPLE.  147 

The  savage  shadows,  struggling  by  the  shore, 

Have  conquered  in  the  valley  ;  inch  by  inch 

The  vanquished  light  fights  bravely  to  these  crags 

To  perish  glorious  in  the  sunset  fire  ; 

Even  as  our  hunted  Cause  so  pressed  and  torn 

In  Syrian  valleys,  and  the  trampled  marge 

Of  consecrated  streams,  displays  at  last 

Its  narrowing  glories  from  these  steadfast  walls. 

Here  in  God's  name  we  stand,  and  brighter  far 

Shines  the  stern  virtue  of  my  martyr-host 

Through  these  invidious  fortunes,  than  of  old, 

When  the  still  sunshine  glinted  on  their  helms, 

And  dallying  breezes  woke  their  bridle-bells 

To  tinkling  music  by  the  reedy  shore 

Of  calm  Tiberias,  where  our  angry  Lord, 

Wroth  at  the  deadly  sin  that  cursed  our  camp, 

Denied  and  blinded  us,  and  gave  us  up 


148  GUY    OF    THE    TEMPLE. 

To  the  avenging  sword  of  Saladin. 

Yet  would  he  not  permit  his  truth  to  sink 

To  utter  loss  amid  that  foundering  fight, 

But  led  us,  scarred  and  shattered  from  the  spoil 

Of  Paynim  rage,  the  desert's  thirsty  death, 

To  where  beneath  the  sheltering  crags  we  prayed 

And  rested  and  grew  strong.     Heroes  and  saints 

To  alien  peoples  shall  they  be,  my  brave 

And  patient  warriors  ;  for  in  their  stout  hearts 

God's  spirit  dwells  forever,  and  their  hands 

Are  swift  to  do  his  service  on  his  foes. 

The  swelling  music  of  their  vesper-hymn 

Is  rising  fragrant  from  the  shadowed  vale 

Familiar  to  the  welcoming  gates  of  heaven. 

Mother  of  God!  as  evening  falls 
Upon  the  silent  sea, 


GUY   OF   THE   TEMPLE.  149 

And  shadows  veil  the  mountain  walls, 

We  lift  our  souls  to  tJiee  ! 
From  lurking  perils  of  the  night, 
'    The  desert's  hidden  harms, 
From  plagues  that  waste,  from  blasts  that  smite, 

Defend  thy  men-at-arms  ! 

Ay  !  Heaven  keep  them  !  and  ye  angel-hosts 
That  wait  with  fluttering   plumes  around  the  great 
White  throne  of  God,  guard  them  from  scathe  and 

harm  ! 

For  in  your  starry  records  never  shone 
The  memory  of  desert  so  great  as  theirs. 
I  hold  not  first,  though  peerless  else  on  earth, 
That  knightly  valor,  born  of  gentle  blood 
And   war's  long   tutelage,    which   hath   made    their 

name 


GUY   OF   THE   TEMPLE. 

Blaze  like  a  baleful  planet  o'er  these  lands  ; 

Firm  seat  in  saddle,  lance  unmoved,  a  hand 

Wedding  the  hilt  with  death's  persistent  grasp ; 

One-minded  rush  in  fight  that  naught  can  stay. 

Not  these  the  highest,  though  I  scorn  not  these, 

But  rather  offer  Heaven  with  humble  heart 

The  deeds  that  heaven  hath  given  us  arms  to  do. 

For  when  God's  smile  was  with  us  we  were  strong 

To  go  like  sudden  lightning  to  our  mark  : 

As  on  that  summer  day  when  Saladin  — 

Passing  in  scorn  our  host  at  Antioch, 

Who  spent  the  days  in  revel,  and  shamed  the  stars 

With  nightly  scandal  —  came  with  all  his  host, 

Its  gay  battalia  brave  with  saffron  silks, 

Flaunting  the  banners  of  the  Caliphate 

Beneath  the  walls  of  fair  Jerusalem  : 

And  white  and  shaking  came  the  Leper-King, 


GUY    OF    THE   TEMPLE.  IS1 

Great  Baldwin's  blasted  scion,  and  Tripoli 
And  I,  and  twenty,  score  of  Temple  Knights, 
To  meet  the  myriads  marshalled  by  the  bright 
Untarnished  flower  of  Eastern  chivalry  ; 
A  moment  paused  with  level-fronting  spears 
And  moveless  helms  before  that  shining  host, 
Whose  gay  attire  abashed  the  morning  light, 
And  then  struck  spur  and  charged,  while  from  the 

mass 

Of  rushing  terror  burst  the  awful  cry, 
God  and  the  Temple  !    As  the  avalanche  slides 
Down  Alpine  slopes,  precipitous,  cold  and  dark, 
Unpitying  and  unwrathful,  grinds  and  crushes 
The  mountain  violets  and  the  valley  weeds, 
And  drags  behind  a  trail  of  chaos  and  death  ; 
So  burst  we  on  that  field,  and  through  and  through 
The  gay  battalia  brave  with  saffron  silks, 


J52  GUY    OF   THE   TEMPLE. 

Crushed  and  abolished  every  grace  and  gleam, 
And  dragged  where'er  we  rode  a  sinuous  track 
Of  chaos  and  death,  till  all  the  plain  was  filled 
With  battered  armor,  turbaned  trunkless  heads, 
With  silken  mantles  blushing  angry  gules 
And  Bagdad's  banners  trampled  and  forlorn. 

And  Saladin,  stunned  and  bewildered  sore, 

The  greatest  prince,  save  in  the  grace  of  God, 

That  now  wears  sword,  —  mounted  his  brother's  barb, 

And,  followed  by  a  half-score  followers, 

Sped  to  his  castle  Shaubec,  over  against 

The  cliffs  by  Ascalon,  and  there  abode: 

And  sullenly  made  order  that  no  more 

The  royal  nouba  should  be  played  for  him 

Until  he  should  erase  the  rusting  stain 

Upon  his  knightly  honor  ;  and  no  more 

The  nouba  sounded  by  the  Sultan's  tent, 


GUY    OF    THE    TEMPLE.  153 

Morning  nor  evening  by  the  silent  tent, 
Until  the  headlong  greed  of  Chatillon 
Spread  ruin  on  our  cause  from  Montreale. 
But  greatest  are  my  warriors,  as  I  deem, 
In  that  their  hearts,  nearer  than  any  else 
Keep  true  the  pledge  of  perfect  purity 
They  pledged  upon  their  sword-hilts  long  ago. 
For  all  is  possible  to  the  pure  in  heart. 

Mother  of  God !  thy  starry  smile 

Still  bless  us  from  above  ! 
Keep  pure  our  souls  from  passions  guile, 

Our  hearts  from  earthly  love ! 
Still  save  each  soul  from  guilt  apart 

As  stainless  as  each  sword, 
And  guard  undimmed  in  every  heart 

The  image  of  our  Lord ! 
7* 


154  GUY    OF    THE    TEMPLE. 

O  goodliest  fellowship  that  the  world  has  known, 

True  hearts  and  stalwart  arms !  above  your  breasts 

Glitters  no  flash  of  wreathen  amulet 

Forged  against  sword-stroke  by  the  chanted  rhythm 

Of  charms  accurst ;  but  in  each  steadfast  heart 

Blazes  the  light  of  cloudless  purity, 

That  like  a  splendid  jewel  glorifies 

With  restless  fire  the  gold  that  spheres  it  round, 

And  marks  you  children  of  our  God,  whose  lives 

He  guards  with  the  awful  jealousy  of  love. 

And  even  me  that  generous  love  has  spared,  — 

Me,  trustless  knight  and  miserable  man,  — 

Sad    prey    of    dark    and    mutinous    thoughts    that 

tempt 

My  sick  soul  into  perjury  and  death  — 
Since  his  great  love  had  pity  of  my  pain, 
Has  spared  to  lead  these  blameless  warriors  safe 


GUY    OF   THE    TEMPLE.  155 

Into  the  desert  from  the  blazing  towns, 

Out  of  the  desert  to  the  inviolate  hills 

Where     God     has    roofed    them    with    his     hollow 

shield. 

Through  all  these  days  of  tempest  and  eclipse 
His  hand  has  led  me  and  his  wrath  has  flashed 
Its  lightnings  in  the  pathway  of  my  sword. 
And  so  I  hope,  and  so  my  crescent  faith 
Gains  daily  power,  that  all  my  prayers  and  tears 
And  toils  and  blood  and  anguish  borne  for  him 
May  blot  the  accusing  of  my  deadly  sin 
From    heaven's   high   compt,  and   give   me   rest  in 

death ; 

And  lay  the  pallid  ghost  of  mortal  love, 
That  fills  with  banned  and  mournful  loveliness, 
Unblest,  the  haunted  chambers  of  my  soul. 
My  misery  will  atone,  —  my  misery,  — 


156  GUY    OF    THE    TEMPLE. 

Dear  God,  will  surely  atone  !  for  not  the  sting 
Of  macerating  thongs,  nor  the  slow  horror 
Of  crowns  of  thorny  iron  maddening  the  brows, 
Nor  all  that  else  pale  he'fmits  have  devised 
To  scourge  the  rebel  senses  in  their  shade 
Of  caverned  desolation,  have  the  power 
To  smart  and  goad  and  lash  and  mortify 
Like  the  great  love  that  binds  my  ruined  heart 
Relentless,  as  the  insidious  ivy  binds 
The  shattered  bulk  of  some  deserted  tower, 
Enlacing  slow  and  riving  with  strong  hands 
Of  pitiless  verdure  every  seam  and  jut, 
Till  none  may  tear  it  forth  and  save  the  tower. 
So  binds  and  masters  me  my  hopeless  love. 
So  through  the  desert,  in  the  silent  hills, 
F  the  current  of  the  battle's  storm  and  stress, 
One    thought   has   driven    me,  —  that    though    men 
may  call 


GUY    OF    THE    TEMPLE.  157 

Me  stainless  Paladin,  Knight  leal  and  true 
To  Christ  and  Our  Lady,  still  I  know  myself 
A  knight  not  after  God's  own  heart,  a  soul 
Recreant,  and  whelmed  in  the  forbidden  sin. 
For  dearer  to  my  sad  heart  than  the  cross 
I  give  my  heart's  best  blood  for  are  the  eyes 
That  long  ago,  when  youth  and  hope  were  mine, 
I  loved  in  thy  still  valleys,  far  Provence ! 
And  sweeter  to  my  spirit  than  the  bells 
Of  rescued  Salem  are  the  loving  tones 
Of  her  dear  voice,  soft  echoing  o'er  the  years. 
They  haunt  me  in  the  stillness  and  the  glare 
Of  desert  noontide  when  the  horizon's  line 
Swims  faintly  throbbing,  and  my  shadow  hides 
Skulking  beneath  me  from  the  brassy  sky. 
And  when   night   comes    to  soothe  with   breath  of 
balm 


158  GUY    OF    THE   TEMPLE. 

And  pomp  of  stars  the  worn  and  weary  world, 
Her  eyes  rise  in  my  soul  and  make  its  day. 
And  even  into  the  battle  comes  my  love, 
Snatching  the  duty  that  I  offer  Heaven. 

At  closing  of  El-Majed's  awful  day, 
When  the  last  quivering  sunbeams,  choked  with  dust 
And  fume  of  blood,  failed  on  the  level  plain, 
In  the  last  charge,  when  gathered  all  our  knights 
The  precious  handful  who  from  morn  had  stemmed 
The  fury  of  the  multitudinous  hosts 
Of  Islam,  where  in  youth's  hot  fire  and  pride 
Ramped  the  young  lion-whelp,  Ben-Saladin  ; 
As  down  the  slope  we  rode  at  eventide, 
The  dying  sunlight  faintly  smiled  to  greet 
Our  tattered  guidons  and  our  dinted  helms 
And  lance-heads  blooming  with  the  battle's  rose. 
Into  the  vale,  dusk  with  the  shadow  of  death, 


GUY    OF    THE    TEMPLE.  159 

With  silent  lips  and  ringing  mail  we  rode. 
And  something  in  the  spirit  of  the  hour, 
Or  fate,  or  memory,  or  sorrow,  or  sin, 
Or  love,  which  unto  me  is  all  of  these, 
Possessed  and  bound  me  ;  for  when  dashed  our  troop 
In  stormy  clangor  on  the  Paynim  lines 
The  soul  of  my  dead  youth  came  into  me ; 
Faded  away  my  oath  ;  the  woes  of  Zion, 
God  was  forgot  ;  blazed  in  my  leaping  heart, 
With  instant  flash,  life's  inextinguished  fires  ; 
Plunging  along  each  tense  limb  poured  the  blood 
Hot  with  its  years  of  sleeping-smothered  flame. 
And  in  a  dream  I  charged,  and  in  a  dream 
I  smote  resistless  ;  foemen  in  my  path 
Fell  unregarded,  like  the  wayside  flowers 
Clipped  by  the  truant's  staff  in  daisied  lanes. 
For  over  me  burned  lustrous  the  dear  eyes 


I6O  GUY   OF    THE   TEMPLE. 

Of  my  beloved  ;  I  strove  as  at  a  joust 

To  gain  at  end  the  guerdon  of  her  smile. 

And  ever,  as  in  the  dense  melee  I  dashed, 

Her  name  burst  from  my  lips,  as  lightning  breaks 

Out  of  the  plunging  wrack  of  summer  storms. 

0  my  lost  love  !     Bright  o'er  the  waste  of  years  — 
That  bliss  and  beauty  shines  upon  my  soul ; 

As  far  beyond  yon  desert  hangs  the  sun, 
Gilding  with  tender  beam  the  barren  stretch 
Of  sands  that  intervene.     In  this  still  light 
The  old  sweet  memories  glimmer  back  to  me. 
Fair  summers  of  my  youth,  —  the  idle  days 

1  wandered  in  the  bosky  coverts  hid 

In  the  dim  woods  that  girt  my  ancient  home  ; 
The  blue  young  eyes  I  met  and  worshipped  there ; 
The  love  that  growing  turned  those  gloomy  wilds 


GUY   OF  THE  TEMPLE.  l6l 

To  faery  dells,  and  filled  the  vernal  air 
With  light  that  bathed  the  hills  of  Paradise ; 
The  warm,  long  days  of  rapturous  summer-time, 
When  through  the  forests  thick  and  lush  we  strayed, 
And  love  made  our  own  sunshine  in  the  shades. 
And  all  things  fair  and  graceful  in  the  woods 
I  loved  with  liberal  heart ;  the  violets 
Were  dear  for  her  dear  eyes,  the  quiring  birds 
That  caught  the  musical  tremble  of  her  voice. 
O  happy  twilights  in  the  leafy  glooms  ! 
When  in  the  glowing-  dusk  the  winsome  arts 
And  maiden  graces  that  all  day  had  kept 
Us  twain  and  separate  melted  away 
In  blushing  silence,  and  my  love  was  mine 
Utterly,  utterly,  with  clinging  arms 
And  quick,  caressing  fingers,  warm  red  lips, 
Where  vows,  half  uttered,  drowned  in  kisses,  died ; 

K 


1 62  GUY    OF    THE   TEMPLE. 

Mine,  with  the  starlight  in  her  passionate  eyes ; 
The  wild  wind  of  the  woodland  breathing  low 
To  wake  the  elfin  music  of  the  leaves, 
And  free  the  prisoned  odors  of  the  flowers, 
In  honor  of  young  Love  come  to  his  throne  ! 
While  we  under  the  stars,  with  twining  arms 
And  mutual  lips  insatiate,  gave  our  souls  — 
Madly  forgetting  earth  and  heaven  —  to  love ! 

In  desert  march  or  battles  flame, 

In  fortress  and  in  field, 
Our  war-cry  is  thy  holy  name, 

TJiy  love  our  joy  and  shield  ! 
And  if  we  falter,  let  thy  power 

Thy  stern  avenger  be, 
And  God  forget  us  in  the  hour 

We  cease  to  think  of  thee  ! 


GUY   OF   THE    TEMPLE.  163 

Curse  me  not,  God  of  Justice  and  of  Love  ! 
Pitiful  God,  let  my  long  woe  atone ! 

I  cannot  deem  but  God  has  pitied  me  ; 

Else  why  with  painful  care  have  I  been  saved, 

Whenever  tossed  and  drenched  in  the  fierce  tide 

Of  Saladin's  victories  by  the  walls  profaned 

Of  Jaffa,  on  the  sands  of  far  Daroum, 

Or  in  the  battle  thundering  on  the  downs 

Of  Ramlah,  or  the  bloody  day  that  shed 

Red  horrors  on  high  Gaza's  parapets  ? 

For  never  a  storm  of  fatal  fight  has  raged 

In  Islam's  track  of  rout  and  ruin  swept 

From  Egypt  to  Gebail,  but  when  the  ebb 

Of  battle  came  I  and  my  host  have  lain, 

Scarred,  scorched,  safe  somewhere  on  its  fiery  shore. 

At  Marcab's  lingering  siege,  where  day  by  day 


1 64  GUY    OF   THE   TEMPLE. 

We  told  the  Moslem  legions  toiling  slow, 

Planting  their  engines,  delving  in  their  mines 

To  quench  in  our  destruction  this  last  light 

Of  Christendom,  our  fortress  in  the  crags, 

God's  beacon  swung  defiant  from  the  stars  ; 

One  thunderous  night  I  knew  their  miners  groped 

Below,  and  thought  ere  morn  to  die,  in  crush 

And  tumult  of  the  falling  citadel. 

And  pondering  of  my  fate  —  the  broken  storm 

Sobbing  its  life  away  —  I  was  aware 

There  grew  between  me  and  the  quieting  skies 

A  face  and  form  I  knew,  —  not  as  in  dreams, 

The  sad  dishevelled  loveliness  of  earth, 

But  lighter  than  the  thin  air  where  she  swayed,  — 

Gold  hair  flame-fluttered,  eyes  and  mouth  aglow 

With  lambent  light  of  spiritual  joy. 

With  sweet  command  she  beckoned  me  away 


GUY    OF   THE   TEMPLE.  165 

And  led  me  vaguely  dreaming,  till  I  saw 
Where  the  wild  flood  in  sudden  fury  had  burst 
A  passage  through  the  rocks  :  and  thence  I  led 
My  host  unharmed,  following  her  luminous  eyes, 
Until  the  East  was  gray,  and  with  a  smile 
Wooing  me  heavenward  still  she  passed  away 
Into"  the  rosy  trouble  of  the  dawn. 

And  I  believe  my  love  is  shrived  in  heaven, 
And  I  believe  that  I  shall  soon  be  free. 

For  ever,  as  I  journey  on,  to  me 

Waking  or  sleeping  come  faint  whisperings 

And  fancies  not  of  earth,  as  if  the  gates 

Of  near  eternity  stood  for  me  ajar, 

And  ghostly  gales  come  blowing  o'er  my  soul 

Fraught  with  the  amaranth  odors  of  the  skies. 

I  go  to  join  the  Lion-Heart  at  Acre, 


1 66  GUY    OF   THE   TEMPLE. 

4-nd  there,  after  due  homage  to  my  liege, 
And  after  patient  penance  of  the  church, 
And  after  final  devoir  in  the  fight, 
If  that  my  God  be  gracious,  I  shall  die. 
And  so  I  pray  —  Lord  pardon  if  I  sin  !  — 
That  I  may  lose  in  death's  imbittered  wave, 
The  stain  of  sinful  loving,  and  may  find 
In  glory  again  the  love  I  lost  below, 
With  all  of  fair  and  bright  and  unattained, 
Beautiful  in  the  cherishing  smile  of  God, 
By  the  glad  waters  of  the  River  of  Life ! 

Night  hangs  above  the  valley ;  dies  the  day 
In  peace,  casting  his  last  glance  on  my  cross, 
And  warns  me  to  my  prayers.     Ave  Maria  ! 
Mother  of  God  !  the  evening  fades 
On  wave  and  hill  and  lea, 


GUY    OF    THE   TEMPLE.  1 67 

And  in  the  twilight's  deepening  shades 

We  lift  our  souls  to  thee  ! 
In  passions  stress  —  the  battles  strife, 

The  desert's  lurking  harms, 
Maid- Mother  of  the  Lord  of  Life, 

Protect  thy  men-at-arms  ! 


THE     END. 


Cambridge :  Electrolysed  and  Printed  by  Welch,  Bigelow,  &  Co. 


